Moorda Dhan (Dead money)

This phrase was used by an elderly gentleman whom I had the opportunity to meet in one of my train rides. He was epitome of grey wisdom. Also having read and travelled a lot. He knew all about parvati valley (Malana) and about how it is difficult finding labourers in Chhattisgarh because of the minimum price for rice (i'll write about that in another post).

I am paraphrasing,..

Why do people run after money? How much of your life you actually waste going after that, when in fact even when you get it, are you truly happy.
In fact there is two kinds of money in this world. 'Dead money' and well 'alive money'.

Now let us see what is alive money. A cycle rickshaw puller earns say 100 bucks a day. How much time does that money stay in his pocket? A day, 2 days maximum a week. I would say most of it is spent in a day. That money is truly alive. It moves. It's dynamic. It changes hands.

Dead money on the other hand is dead. It stays where it is. It rots. For the most it may reproduce, I mean gain interest, but even then it's like two elephants mating. Once in a year?

So in short don't kill money.

I am not sure exactly how to go about following his advice. Did he want us to invest? Did he want us to earn only what we need? I don't know. Do you?