My grandfather was obsessed with saving money. For hours, he would explain the recurring deposit scheme to turn `1 lakh into `5 lakhs in seven years. He would waste his time and mine because I did not think beyond a day.
The father of my cousin, Raja, was very wealthy but led the lifestyle of a pauper. He would not use his car, which he kept hidden under a tarpaulin sheet. He would insist on travelling by bus. So I asked him, “What’s the point of having so much money, if you don’t spend it?” He replied that if his grandfather and father had thought the way I did, he would probably have no money at all.
Then I reasoned, “Your grandfather worked hard and gave his savings to your father. Your father passed on the money to you. Now you’re saving it to pass it on to Raja and he will give it to his son. But what if Raja’s son turns out to be a useless fellow like me? Won’t the four generations have struggled in vain, and that too foolishly?”
Money is worthless unless it is made kinetic. After identifying your bare necessities, you can move to the luxuries which you can afford to buy from the shopping mall of life. Problem ahead: you can buy the greatest music system in a shop but you can’t buy yourself a mind which enjoys the music being played on that system. That mind has to be within you.
If you don’t have the capacity of enjoying life, money merely means securing yourself from poverty and feeling superior to those who don’t have as much money as you do in the bank, cupboard, or wherever you hoard it.
If you have a beautiful house, it will be admired, especially by those who live on the same street. But you will start taking it for granted a few days after the interior décor has been completed. You will find hundreds of faults with it. Also if you have issues with your wife, the same place will be like returing to a house of horrors at the end of the day.
I don’t care for people who want to make money just to save it. I don’t understand the point of preparing for death right from the time of birth. Truly, then, what’s the point of being born?
I want money so that I can make movies. Yet, I don’t make movies so that I can make money. I have never made money. I think I never will. Even if I make a film which does not click, which obviously cannot be my intention, at least it generates employment for a lot of people. And irrespective of the fact that I may lose all my money, I will still earn some more because of my ideas.
Ideas and feelings are the only true wealth anyone can possess. On that account I have always been rich and I will always be. After all, I live exclusively for myself.