Till some few days back, Mercs and BMWs still had their special existence in my view… had aspired to own one of them sometime in life… but not anymore… surely not after seeing multiple models of Porsches, Hummers, Landrovers, Audis, all together, every single day, driven by people as young as us, or a little older may be… Well, all these are owned by our client (also a socio-politically influential and wealthy family) where we are currently doing a consulting assignment… In the initial days of the project, our (mine and my colleagues’) eyes would open wide, trying to absorb the affluence being flaunted around… with the chic cars, the plush offices, the newest gadgets (including diamond studded mobile phone!!), the personal bodyguards and police security, and the overall opulent lifestyle… we keep wondering of the ‘likely’ personal networth of these promoters… With time, this extravagance has almost become part of our daily life and as a result, we have started looking down upon everything that is small or insignificant in comparison (including mercs, bmws and to some extent WE ourselves)…

Well, I have seen extravagance from very close quarters, thanks to my earlier banking job where we banked the rich and wealthy diamond merchants… So its been a lesser of a shock for me as compared to my colleagues… But honestly, it does feel insignificant and tiny everytime I get to closely see people leading such high profile lifestyle… I keep wondering how vastly different is their life from mine… Money brings along a certain social status and with it comes their need to load themselves with luxury and swanky lifestyle… But more important than that, money brings a huge sense of security and mental peace for them… (some may argue that the poor have nothing to lose and the rich have all to lose… so who has better peace of mind? but I beg to differ… for something as basic as the well-being of an individual, having more money at disposal is anyday better than having no money at all !!)…

In any case, value of money is relative… most of us would have experienced that, having moved upward in the social strata… atleast I have… having carefully counted every penny in my piggy bank… to being mighty pleased at my first salary (stipend of Rs 250 !!)… to saving enough to go for two day ‘picnics’ with friends, to starting a married life together with two suitcases of clothes…… to now being able to swipe purchases one after the other on card… to being able to confidently walk into the plush showrooms, restaurants… to being able to go on ‘holidays’ with friends… sometimes it almost scares me to think that we have been so spoilt, that we pick up stuff at supermarket without looking at the price tags most of the times… but I guess its only natural that spending habits evolve (rather worsen !!) as you earn more… so the Hummers and Porsches should not surprise me really because they are part of the ‘evolved’ spending habits of their owners!!

According to me, true value of money is reflected in the assets that it creates… So after the money has built a magnificent lifestyle for someone (like the promoters I mentioned above), the incremental money does not create any incremental assets… it mostly goes in maintaining that opulent lifestyle… Don’t know what it takes to make so much of money, but surely know that never in my life will I make it… Do I want to? Cant say for sure… Because, after a point value of money also diminishes… or so I think :-)