As a little boy from a middle class family in the nineties, I do not know if I can say that the city of Bangalore was the best place to grow up. It was the time when as a kid I was made to feel ashamed for not being affluent in many innocent ways. There used to be a big toy store called “The Kids Kemp” and it was a buzz among all my classmates back then. I never got a chance to go there. Not even as an adult. The most happening places of those days were located on MG road, Brigade road and Commercial street. The first time I had a real experience of these places was only after I finished school. A lot of the spaces within these streets were very intimidating. They looked out of reach to our wallets that collected money over many years from the small change that my parents and relatives would give us during festivals. It made us feel like people had to be deserving of a life and a lifestyle that complemented these places and we were surely the undeserving onlookers. 

Long time ago one of my rich uncles took all of us cousins out and this was the first time I had a bottled cold drink. I can still access the excitement and the happiness of that moment. However, I have a much stronger memory of the way I was schooled by him for throwing a straw on the street just after I finished drinking it. While the topic on the surface was about hygiene and not littering, the kid was also being reminded about his lack of class and sophistication to be a member of the affluent club. 

My parents fulfilled all my basic needs as a child and the circumstances at home were quite transparent to stop us from demanding more than what we have been given. There were occasions where they also went out of their way to make us happy but never in an indulgent manner. I had to time the expression of my wishes and the success rate of these wishes being fulfilled was below 20 percent. I am someone who grew up with a constant feeling of deprivation. A sense of deprivation so strong that I still see it surfacing at the age of 37. I still feel a bit self conscious when I go to star hotels or places that have a vibe of affluence and privilege. It is strange. On one side an aspiration is being fulfilled and on the other side there is this strong identity of a middle class kid at the core who is worried about being judged for not behaving in a manner that is sophisticated enough for the place. You never know what metaphorical straw you will dispose of and which uncle will come out of nowhere and school you for being uncultured. 

In my journey of life so far I have had a very diverse set of friends and acquaintances. People from all walks of life and all socioeconomic backgrounds. I am also from a generation that saw an environmental movement taking shape in this country. We have transitioned from a time where there were public buses that went around giving out thick black smoke to a time where we see electric buses and Metro trains connecting the city. Being environmentally conscious is a choice a lot of people are making these days. People from the affluent part of the society have also become more expressive about their choice for environmentally conscious living. The ones who have made this choice also very often are quite passionate about persuading others to do the same. It is now very important to come across as a socially and environmentally conscious individual in many affluent circles. I do not think negatively about this trend and I feel that the rich and the powerful have a lot of influence in driving the aspirations of the not so rich and powerful. However, it feels strange when a person of economic privilege schools someone like me about some aspects of environmentally and socially conscious living. 

I have used a lot of public transport in my life. Public buses were a very traumatic experience for me as a young kid. My parents would buy a half ticket for me as that was what people bought for Kids under a certain age. With the amount of people that we had in the city a full ticket did not assure you a seat, it only assured a commute. Therefore you can imagine the respect given to a half ticket. Very often I had to give up my seat to strange adults with full tickets and sit on my parent’s lap. The worst was when my parents would stand in a crowded bus and make me sit on the lap of a stranger as it would be inconvenient to carry or hold a child while standing in the crowd. I have had multiple experiences as a child in these buses that I have fully locked and buried in the depths of my mind. I realised a lot of these experiences were some form of child sexual abuse as I grew up to know the existence of this phenomenon. 

During the time while I was still in school and old enough to travel by these buses independently, the public transport experience was equally frustrating. We had huge bags and highly subsidised yearly passes. The conductors used to verbally and sometimes physically abuse us for obstructing the movement in the crowded bus. Other adults would treat us subsidised commuters as a nuisance. 

These experiences had made me so averse to public transport that after my father bought me a second hand bike during my college, my reliance on the local buses reduced drastically. I guess a big percentage of private vehicles that contribute to the infamous Bangalore traffic today are owned by the kids of the nineties like me who had a very unappealing relationship with public transport. Most of their graduation was in sync with  the boom in the IT sector which resulted in a buying power that landed a lot of cars on the roads of this city. Some of us might not have bought our bikes and cars if we had a better experience of Public transport as children. Maybe it is important to evolve a public transport system that cares about the way children experience them. 

However this is not the main point I wanted to make. I don’t think I actually have a main point. I want to say that I get annoyed when rich people romanticise the middle class lifestyle. I do not fully know why I feel that way. It is difficult for me to take a lesson on the merits of public transport from someone who spent most of their childhood inside a car listening to backstreet boys on the stereo and buying toys at the Kids Kemp. 

More Conversations