In a morally decomposing society, the key to happiness is to craft your bubble with your foundation of 12+LPA salary. Your relatively upper-class gated community, where the guard runs to open gate for you, saving your 9 seconds; for you only. Choose to look at nicer things under a self-controlled environment, I urge you. Summon midnight biryani through roads where others fear mugging, your ₹26 convenience fee is worth your troubles. Easy access to weed and alcohol is meant for you; the additional ₹26 on food, delivered at odd timings are for you; your anytime Uber and coke in 7 mins. Careful waking up to your ₹1.5k maid, arriving to clean up your beer party, while you choose to order morning coffee, that just works right for you. Your bubble is your life, and why the fuck not, you earned it, you deserve it.
Your friend’s hangout, aesthetics of over-ambitious personality, subscription of Hinge dates, blur of 6 LED lights in 2nd floor cafe overlooking trees, your crypto trade, and daily 5k steps in society, are for you only. A mild goal of travelling and rapid recycling of partners with non-consequential and often unaccountable decisions are for you only. Your Instagram stories are a carousel of carefully curated emptiness - coffee art that costs a day’s minimum wage, weekend getaways to places whose local names you’ll never learn to pronounce, relationships as disposable as the takeout containers piling up in your kitchen. Your 5k steps are tracked by a device that costs more than your security guard’s monthly salary, while children three blocks away walk twice that distance to reach their government school.
Because we know that your act of understanding the hardship of delivery drivers is part of your aesthetic gratitude; not a motivator to improve the structures even a little bit. You know that, you and your friends probably want to leave India, with discussions oscillating between Netflix or Amazon Prime; between craft beer and kombucha. Tell me, do you want to eat a McD burger or from Pizza Hut? Tell me how badly you want to leave this country, while your Instagram story preaches about supporting local businesses. Your empathy is as imported as your AirPods, your concern for social issues expires faster than your food delivery ETA.
I am not even angry at accepting that no collective pressure or action is likely to fix even one city at this point. I am not even angry at accepting that everyone’s rut is a collapse of empathetic action. I am not angry that your posts on Instagram sharing is a direct inclination to your one-trick understanding of any communal problem and gender issues. I am angry that you are not even angry. That we collectively chose to look away from problems right in front of our gates, and our aesthetics of posting it over 24 hours gave us a moral superiority in our own bubble, and makes us feel we have done our part.
Your hashtag activism expires with your story, your outrage dissolves faster than your morning cold brew, your conscience as disposable as your food delivery packaging. And it’s disgusting.
And tonight, when you order that midnight snack, remember - your extra ₹26 delivery charge is wrong, but pay it anyway, curse those who charge your hard earned ₹26, don’t forget it, write a review, post a story, ₹26 extra every freaking day.
Sleep well with full stomach in your bubble; it’s getting thinner every day.