Last month my internet provider Mobilink suddenly made it mandatory to use 8 Gb every month instead of 5 Gb. This 3 additional Gb (which would cost an extra Rs. 300) was supposed to be used only for Facebook and Whattsapp. I don't use Facebook much, I prefer to use Twitter and Whattsapp. But that didn't help. When I pointed out that I have never used more than 3 or 4 Gb every month, the sweet young voice at the other end said, "It's only Rs. 300 per month, Sir. Surely you can afford it?"
Oh yes, three hundred a month doesn't mean much to today's youngsters. But then, this was the monthly salary of a bank manager in the 1950's. It could buy a hundred kg of meat. In 1950, we used to pay our male servant twenty rupees a month, the maid servant was satisfied with fifteen. My first salary (in 1966) was Rs. 500 and I remember saving more than half of it. But today's young people don't believe in saving at all. Most of them prefer to spend their income on new cell phones or dining in expensive restaurants. A couple with two or three children eating out once a week spend two hundred thousand rupees a year. When I was young, there were very few eating places in the city, and I couldn't afford to eat out so much, perhaps once a month at most. But tell this to youngsters today, and their reaction is, "Enjoy yourself, you only live once, what are you going to do with all that money? Take it to the grave?"
I want to tell them that it's only when you're old that you need more money (like, for example, on medicines and doctors). But of course that will not persuade them to change their ways.
So I changed my internet package to 4 Gb per month, half of which is to be used on Facebook and Whattsapp. It suits me fine, last month I used up 3.5 Gb in all.
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