My First Blog Post

The Maintenance Trap

In many ways I consider Mumbai as one of the best places to be in India. Mumbai is safe even at 12 mid-night for most parts. You can still get transport and reach your destination safely. Relatively there are very fewer natural calamities, we hardly get mother earth shaking us off her back or sea lord trying to gulp us down. More so, climate wise also we consider ourselves fortunate, winters are pleasant, summers are bearable and rains are favorite season for many Mumbaikars (except for the traffic jams in the rain).

But I am not going to talk about how I got lucky to be in Mumbai for most of my life. Today I am going to talk about the trap I feel tightening its grip strongly on my life. I am going to call this a maintenance trap.

Increasing I am forced to spend more and more resources just to maintain the ordinary. Money, time and energy all the resources are just kept occupied and on high alert to be in the race to be normal.

List is endless and things once ticked come back in circle, not giving you a moment to breath.  

Yearly activities of filing IT returns, managing DTH subscription, payment of health and life insurance, servicing of appliances like washing machine, aqua guard, A/C not to mention insurance for vehicle, yearly health checkup all these activities sucks lots of bandwidth and have started costing a considerable portion of the pay cheque.

More so there are many appliances like wall clocks, wrist watches, TV remotes, and even ceiling fan now need attention every now and then. All these activities and appliances seem to have created a perfect orchestra for life to be occupied and dependent on many individuals who are part of the ecosystem, I am talking about service person for A/C and Washing machine repair guy, policy agent, carpenter and electrician who’s number you would need handy to be able to maintain the new normal.

Every season seems to come with its own challenges and demands for life to be on the ordinary track. Example, rains comes with need to service the bike and car getting it ready for the season, changing the car’s wiper and rain cover for the bike. Getting new footwear, raincoats, umbrellas and not to mention rain wares.

Once a year someone or the other make a transaction on your credit or debit card that you had not authorized or you will be automatically subscribed for a service you had not requested. Making you call many customer care numbers to either block the card or stop the subscription, taking 30-45 mins out of your life.

Is this happening as a coincidence or this is a ‘Maintenance Trap’ that I face… Question of the greater degree is who has set up this track? Is the designed to keep my urban consumerism and spending going, or to keep me at the bottom of the pyramid? I can’t help but think this is a distraction to keep me from rising! I am unable to find the answer, but if you are faced with the similar trap and feel someone or something greater than us is controlling the strings, comment below and we know we are not alone!