Eggs, Sperm AUR kya…

A few years back, somebody just disturbed my otherwise busy schedule by asking me to accompany him to a car showroom. Yeah, never let anybody know that you know something more than they do. Anyways, not quite a harmful affair as the “somebody” was my uncle who wanted to own a brand new sedan. And the only reason that it took him almost 5 years to finally set out was that he isn’t any tata-birlas. He is just another Musaddi lal rather. He needs to adjust on his petrol bills before even thinking of buying a toothbrush so as not to let his budget for the next month go fumble. The idea of adding two more wheels wasn’t just for pleasure either. May be it was to save the cost of first dropping his children to two different schools, then taking his father to a physiotherapist and then patrolling back the same lane to drop his younger brother to his senior secondary and on the way back picking up his father from the physiotherapist’s. This is all within an hour’s duration that he has to go back and forth on the same lane everyday, except for a beautiful Sunday. If instead he had something like a bullock cart or a truck, it would have saved him both time and money. Still, he would have to let go on his “social-status” anyway. Hence the conception of the idea of having something that can do justice to all - a sedan.

Already calculated that it would turn out to be lucrative only if the substitute comes with at least a 16 kmpl tag, we had narrowed down to trusted and established market leaders. Hours of thorough discussions everyday with the car dealers, weeks of “mind blasting” calculations, and worth mentioning the worst part, not even a single test drive made me think I was better illiterate. After almost 3 months he settled for a maruti Suzuki alto the “low(est) price edition”. To bring smiles to the otherwise indifferent faces and to hide the actual reason for buying such a costly public transport equity, he decided to say that he has got it as an incentive for working really hard at his office. That he’d just have to pay for the petrol to own the vehicle in 4 years from now. Pretending to come out as a happy and contented being, he brought me a brick of butterscotch ice-cream as a token of gratitude. Alright, ok, hard work never goes unrewarded but at least it should be somewhere close to what you might be expecting out of it. As if he read my mind, suddenly, out of the blue, he began to say- “I know I have made you walk miles with me merely to decide what I would like to CRUISE in. But you’ll have to believe me that I also wanted to make sure whether you were equally comfortable steering it down your lane.” My goodness and oh dear god, I was then made a 50% shareholder to the still-to-be-bought-sedan.

That was the day I really felt guilty of being the most selfish person on earth. I felt literally shameful of even already deciding what I should get in return for the workout I thought I had been subjected to. May be this is what we have learnt from the world around – don’t set a price tag, sell yourself to the highest bidder instead. It was only for this day that I realised how considerate is every little thing that our elders do and yet they never let us feel the need to mull over asking for anything we ever wish to own.

Well, it wasn’t for more than 6 months that he could feel relieved on his monthly budget when one day his brother asked to let him join an institute in order to fight for the competitive exams after completing his senior secondary. The brother’s proposal didn’t frighten him much, but the cost of materialising it quite did. An amount touching 1 lakh mark usually does to a man like him, be it inwards or outwards. And there goes the alto. 1 lakh 50 thousand after depreciation. I lost a wheel too and got nothing in return . His elder son got merely a first division in high school. He wasn’t expecting much either but wanted to see his son trotting the maths-science lane like him. But with a first division he’s no sure whether to drive down or hunch back. He has to either decide by himself or let things shape up on their own. Both ways he will have to compromise on whatever he has earned through his life- not money, but what actually has made the way to fetch some.
What we are doing right now is for our own good. We, as for now, haven’t once thought of earning and saving for our own trio i.e. husband, wife and the young one. We haven’t ever thought what we now aspire might just become a sacrifice very shortly. It won’t be a brand new Volkswagen, but a medical insurance we would have invested in to secure our loved ones’ health.. It won’t be an i-pod or whatever these over-enthusiastic manufacturers might have in stores then, but a fee receipt from our child’s school. It won’t be a bank account in swiss bank to flaunt about, but a life insurance bond, just in case… It won’t be a holiday on an exotic location but a regular visit to office year after year so as to meet the daily expenses which inturn would be to sustain life and let it haul over. It’s not going to be a garnished meal every month, but the monthly instalments from a house or car loan. And to add to it is the worst part – all of this is then transferred on to our next generations. We train them to live in miserable conditions on the pretext that no one knows what’s decided for whom. Although, throughout our life we would have strived hard to make sure that nothing like this ever comes banging on our children. We would be earning and saving almost everything for them. But this wasn’t anywhere around when we were deciding as to what stream to choose after high school, what to do after senior secondary, what after college. Not impressive enough, right? Just try reading it again, but this time see your parents doing it all in the whole situation above.. Instead of a Volkswagen there would have been a two wheeler, the i-pod was the called transistor, the swiss account used to be in a post office. I wonder who gives them the courage to actually muddle through the series of heists. At least I don’t have the courage to bring all this onto someone I care for. I can’t think of bringing someone to life and then start preparing for its murder by putting it to the intricacies of this barbaric world. For I don’t know whether I can be as brave as my parents are, sacrificing literally EVERYTHING.

Oh GOD bestow upon me the wisdom to change the things I can’t accept or grant me the serenity to accept the things I can’t change.


For me it’s not only the fittest sperm and the healthiest egg to procure, but ……… may be nothing can do the magic. What about you??