What does it take to feel like a billionaire? Fancy boats, private planes, rocks on your fingers, an IPL team or two, many homes (and if you are anything like the Japanese tycoon who held a unique competition recently between his many mistresses, a companion each in each of these homes), many cars, old spirits, modern art, post-modern gizmos et cetera? Do you covet these badges?
For any one living on the “fringes” of this exclusive club, it would be but natural to aspire to a little bit of the good life, wouldn’t it? But funnily enough, fewer people than you would imagine admit to desiring any of the above. While all of us wish for a little bit of extra money, it isn’t necessarily to buy a yatch. The most clichéd covetables still remain “love” and “happiness”. Among the tangibles people want seem to be “travel” or to “be able to do what I like”. Money is clearly desired only in so much that it sets one free.
It is always instructive to know what other people want. A Facebook query that I put out (admittedly to mostly middle-class people like us) brought in far fewer aspirations of being a billionaire than I had expected. I got several wishes for good health, “not just for me and my immediate family but everyone around till I am there,” said a colleague who had been wanting to buy solitaires this entire season. (But when she thought about it, rocks wasn’t what she really wanted.) Another friend in Dubai wrote back saying “…true love”, having just contended with a messy episode in her personal life, while another one said that he wanted “to watch football all my life… and get paid for it”. Then, there was an editor (not on Facebook), who snapped back saying “an edit”, though, on second thoughts, he admitted that “I can always give you clichés like ‘happiness’.”
A photographer couple want a studio in their home where they can both work (no easy money even here), while the page designer of this particular product wishes for a “well-done up room with a wooden flooring and a music system” on which he can listen to all his favourite songs. Failing that, he wants an entire village to adopt him (so that he can transform it into a self-sustaining community with huts-on-hire for anyone wanting to sample some eco-tourism).
A young and savvy restaurateur on my Facebook replied, saying, “More than anything, other than money, jets, et cetera is power. The power of being able to do anything and everything you wish to, at ease, would be the biggest thing,” thus confirming my hypothesis that, at heart, all humans want to be free and unburdened but ironically need to burden themselves with trivialities such as office meetings and business dealings, weddings, funerals and hairdresser appointments — to be able to do “nothing” one day.
Like my friend the solitaire-buyer, I have been coveting a Jamavar shawl this entire season. But financial prudence during these times of recession has obviously prevailed. So, I wouldn’t mind some extra cash to go to Javed, the Kashmiri shawl seller with a collection amazing enough for you to want to buy all of it. On the other hand, if I sit back and really think about it, all I want at this particular point is just a bit of spare time to sit and read my books, basking in the sun, like I used to in my days in the hostel.
If that sounds idyllic, here’s more: An aunt tells me that when she was a little girl and her father’s pet, all she wanted was a bottle of “Campa Cola” everyday “because I wanted to feel like a princess”. Those were obviously pre-Liberalisation days and also those before parents anxious about empty calories and rotting teeth began being strict about cola. My four-year-old daughter wants a (pink) laptop and a bag “like Dora’s” in the TV animation series for kids, but what she holds most precious are a set of four pebbles that she has picked up from the roadside. “They are magical,” she whispers. Her own secret to unlimited money, power and wish fullfilment!