FOR our people, teatime is supposed to be a break from their work, a few minutes of relaxation in their otherwise demanding routine. During this break, they’re often found munching on snacks and gossiping about people they know. And this is where class differences come into play.
Any society mainly has three segments. In ours, the lowest one consists chiefly of the jobless people; the middle class comprises hardworking citizens who wish to progress; and the upper class consists of people who have either amassed too much wealth or are busy devising corrupt ways to accumulate it.
Unfortunately, the difference between these classes is getting sharper. With the passage of time, the fine line between the rich and the poor is getting finer. Any society that has a rising middle class is considered a developing one.
People belonging to the lower or the middle class will be often found working hard to earn a living. But it is too less rewarding to make it noticeable. For the rest of us — the jobless and the filthy rich — every time is teatime. Why? I wonder.
Let us take into consideration the lower class first. It is characterized by large families with just one or no member of the family as the bread winner. If only one earns, the rest depend on him or her for food, clothes and shelter. As a result, we witness poverty and the energies of our youth get wasted due to lack of required education facilities or because of financial constraints.
Numerous factors can be attributed to this problem. People find it almost impossible to get jobs, especially those with no particular skill to boast about or who don’t know any influential person in society and therefore can’t have any recommendation letters for themselves. The issue of unemployment in our country renders millions helpless. However, for those people who have ample time to waste, the rich ones I mean, every time of the day is teatime. Even if they are not gulping down stuff to satiate their appetite, they still gossip or roam around when they don’t have anything better to do.
Those who do succeed in finding jobs either get ones that are too degrading or too underpaying when compared to their labour. When such people realize that their hard work will not be rewarded properly and that their earning will never commensurate with their work, they get discouraged and either leave their jobs or performing it half-heartedly, which makes them have sufficient free time. For the jobless people this time is sometimes spent in committing crime just because they are left with no other alternative.
Our middle class is perhaps that segment which has lesser free time. This class works hard, earns enough to educate its children to a certain extent. They also like to gossip about other people whenever they have time for it. But they deserve this break, for they are, frankly speaking, the people who make it possible for our country to move forward, however sluggishly.
Let’s talk about the rich, the more blessed ones now. For the upper class, money is no big deal and ‘fighting for survival’ is perhaps a term they’re not quite familiar with. It can again be divided into two groups. The first being the lazy group that inherits enough wealth to spend most of their days as teatime. They include our landed aristocracy and industrialists. The second group is the one occupying high official and non-official posts. Their office hours are spent more in gossiping about others and slaking their never-ending appetite for money. Both these groups may have worked hard in the early phases of their progress, but now their time is mostly devoted to drinking tea and frivolous discussions. After all, why should they work when the poor government is providing their already stuffed bellies with every thing they desire?
Many reasons can be ascribed to this appalling condition of our society where teatime is a prominent part of the daily routine of our people. Our youth is facing a dearth of opportunities to earn a good living, which makes them fall prey to depression, drugs, and wasting their time in trivial pursuits. With absolutely no source of guidance available to them and no set goals to achieve, our workforce has turned into a confused, disorganized and demoralized crowd. Insufficient and unfair rewards, low salaries, gender discrimination and nearly no respect and status in many jobs cannot persuade people to start utilizing their time properly. The female population is either uneducated or spends too much of its time in gossiping, backbiting and finding faults in one’s neighbour and relatives. So what can these people do?
It’s time the authorities concerned did something substantial to tackle the issue so that with the passage of time our society doesn’t turn into an utterly useless one.
