The Inner Layers vs the Outers and the deeper reality of it all.

(this article was published in the 1.September.2008 issue of AKS - India Enriched)
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A sunny sunday morning in one of the major commercial cities of a developing country would be, as any of you imagine it, a lazy day in the city life of most of the citi's-zen's. Waking later than usual, sipping the morning cuppa coffee as slowly as possible with the leisurely pace of nothing else to do but this, reaching for the newspapers and lying back in the couch thinking: maybe later on today....
But this isn't the only point of note on a sunny sunday morning of a fast paced commercial city in this developing country (or maybe even other developing countries) ,
Necessities of life have long since been redefined. Today, having a good / fast internet connection is a thousand times more important then having a full fledged grocery store nestled close to a new prospective house. The young here are out to get some more of everything, they look for fun, for frolic, for love and they race after life like a rat would a block of cheese.
But, when we say young, we write of and talk of the outer layer of the people in these cities. By outer layer, meaning, the ones who work hard (or pretend to!) without the baggage of problems weighing on their shoulders. This outer layer has within it, the rich, the rich -to be, the "were rich at one time", the young of the categories just mentioned and the old of the categories just mentioned. But, this doesn't comprise the actual reality of a city's life. Or youth.
In a country / or let's talk of the city: in a city of a 13 million plus, the mix is evident in every wake of every day. A 22 year old girl from one of the above categories, would ideally land herself a white collar job after a basic graduation degree, would still be living with her parents, but would "highten" her scope of life by feeling good that she now can and will buy herself better clothes, more often than when she was in college (just a year ago), go out randomly with friends, randomly, and be able to just do things without thinking twice. She would at times wish she could have got that bag rather than this one but would think it too expensive anyway because she wouldnt want to really blow her entire salary out on one bag (who would pay for the drinks tomorrow night)...would be her basic thoughts.
This is her story from the outer layer.

There's is another 22 year old girl, working in a clinic for Obesity Disorders, who gets paid some little keep sake amount only to operate the machines at the "office" * by operating, i mean, switching on and off.
There is no pity felt for this girl, because, she got a chance to go to college, but wasn't serious enough about gainfully gaining from an education. Yet, with her job, she is able to at least "go to work" and earn some feed to add to the family's income.
She is from what i'd call, the "inner layer".

Inner Layers in a commercial city of a developing country can have a country load of people who are the real strugglers of life, for whom, sunny sundays are a time to try to figure out how to earn some more money or maybe, save some more money, for whom, a sunday doesn't mean that there has to be a special lunch or brunch or dinner or a time to meet with friends to go to the movies....
The inner layers and their numbers are what really make up the country.
A 22 year old from the outers does not pay rent or need to buy food / clothers / grains for the family. That's all free for her. An inner needs to try harder, wants to dream, but can't. Wishes she could be an outer, but can't.
Society and luxury do go together to some extent, but when daily news reports talk of the burgeoning middle class or middle to upper classes and the ever blossoming luxury market, i sometime stay and wonder "How"? Or "where"?
Where are these people so talked about? And do they really make up a "market"? Considering that there aren't as many outers truthfully.
The country moves forward rapidly, but the reality and stakes puzzle me endlessly. Who guides everything? Who decides? Who draws the lines?
The deeper i travel into the subject, the deeper i go into the interiors, i find more of what i don't really see. I see things that aren't ever talked about. I see the reality of this city's fake life.
Where one can afford and will (not necessarily, but will) buy a Gucci bag to adorn an outfit, another would not know what Gucci is and wouldn't probably have ever seen the amount of money that totalled the bag in a lifetime. Or maybe, half a lifetime.
Money doesn't always make the world go round, but it can.
Development where the rich get richer, where the middle stay averagely OK and the poor get poorer doesn't count in reality. The stakes aren't balanced out.
The deeper reality of it all lies in the meaning of the real majority of the people who ideally should be the people's people.
The reality lies in what we don't know and can't see, because what we do see is what we read and what we read is what is easy to write about and what we write about is what we see, and we don't really see the reality of it all.
Because, reality is easy to mask when you get a diamond (the 3rd one in the year) as a gift from another uncle - something.