Shiv Kumar Padha
Every currency note issued by Reserve Bank of India is guaranteed by Central Government with words ‘I promise to pay the bearer the sum of @ rupees’ with signatures of Governor/Secretary of RBI. The currency notes of any denomination have got the same value and power irrespective of the person who possesses it. A man with money in his pocket can purchase quality commodity whichever he likes or intends to purchase from the market, can travel by the kind of transport suiting to his pocket, adopt any permissible and suitable profession in his life, has the right to sue the agencies for getting the justice, right to be served or attended on the public windows and places, he has the right to get the right and accurate quality and quantity of the commodity for which he pays the tagged price and expects treatment equivalent to what is meted out to the rich, influential and powerful persons of the society, in the public and private places. A poor man, though possessing a high moral character, is often jeered at and looked down upon in the society. He falls prey to his economic status, shyness, body language, hesitation which results in feelings of inferiority complex in him. Someone has rightly said ‘poor man is always expected to serve his rich relatives both at his own home as well as at theirs. A fluctuation in the value of international currency is the universal phenomena, but the money in the pocket of the poor man is always prone to devaluation in his own country and the society he lives in. His money has not got the power to purchase the kind and quality he needs. There come enormous occasions in the life of the poor man where:-
I. He is duped at every chemist shops where he is charged the standard price for the fake and the duplicate medicines.
II. He is sold impure and sub standard quality of eatables, vegetables, fruit, edible oils, cereals, food grains, contaminated milk, curd and cheese on the prices the pure one and gets short measure of the commodity he purchases.
III. He is always charged the higher prices on the items he purchases than those charged from the familiar and influential one in the society.
IV. While travelling in the buses he is always allotted the seat which others decline to sit on.
V. Poor man, while travelling in public transport, is asked to vacate his seat for the one up-to-date and influential passenger entering the bus.
VI. He is always the last man in the queue to be served and attended.
A poor man is a creature who is born to bear the wrath of the people for his trivial and minor mistakes. The society always expects from him instead of reciprocating him with love affection, belongingness and attention which he expects for respectful existence in social life. In the present age of favoritism, opportunism and pervading corruption the poor man is neither listened nor attended in any office unless he is accompanied by some mediator and tout of the concerned department. In the event of infringement and encroachment of his rights he finds him alone and helpless seeking justices for the excesses and atrocities being inflicted upon him by the society he lives in. It has become a common practice in the so-called educated, civilized and elite class living in the small and metro cities to man handle, humiliate and abuse the Rickshaw pullers, taxi and car drivers and the persons serving as the security guards in the posh societies and colonies.
The poor Rickshaw-puller laborers, hawkers and the nomads become the victims of wrath of the police and the population even for their mistakes and misunderstandings while the violators of traffic rules, mafia persons and the absconders escape scot-free and honorably. It is rightly said that poverty is a sin and poor is the sinner who is sent in the mortal world to be humiliated and looked down for no fault committed by him. No society can flourish in the universe which does not care for its downtrodden population because sigh of poor is a curse for the society. There was a song in old Hindi film Patang of 1960, ‘Dene Wale Kisi Ko Gareebi Na De Mout De De Magar Badnaseebi Na De’.
