An Indian Twitter Thread Had People Sharing Their First Salary And It’s Going To Make You Feel Less Underpaid
My family’s dinner table conversations are pretty much like that of any Punjabi family’s. We talk about our days while my mother constantly asks us what to make for breakfast the next day, discuss our future plans, get to listen to our cousin’s future plans which are always better than ours and of course, regularly we are subjected to details of the tough times our parents had when they were our age. During one such conversation one time, my father and mother happened to tell us kids exactly how much they started earning when they first did, and to be honest, it shocked me. My mother at the age of 18 in the year 1986 earned a total of Rs. 1000 for a month of hard work. And my first stipend was 15K at the age of 18 in 2014.
‘That was a simpler time’, my father always used to say while narrating such stories, which always used to start with telling us how much his pocket money was and it was right about what we call pocket change these days. Coins that fall out of our pockets and we don’t even bother to pick up, used to be a gracious amounts during that time. In all of 50 rupees that my dad used to get as pocket money, he claimed to have lived like a rich brat. Nowadays, you leaving that as a tip and you run the risk that the waiter might just spit in your drink and serve it to you.
And drawing a comparison from then to now just makes you feel that the times have changed too much, too soon. I mean my father tells me how he used to be able to purchase so much of food in just a rupee and the other day when I tried to be charitable and handed this young kid at the signal a one rupee coin (because I genuinely did not have more change), the fellow threw it right at my face murmuring “ye bhi tu hi rakh le”. But hey, at least you can get Tata sky channels at one rupee now, so maybe that’s a silver lining?
No matter how less you’d earn back then, it still used to feel like more or at least enough. But now, thanks to inflation and absurd amount of taxes, and also that incessant need to get that latest Kylie lip kit every month, no matter how much we earn, it’s always going to be a hand to mouth situation, literally I mean. And hey it’s just not me, there are so many others who stand shocked at the rate at which value of money has changed over the years. During one such eye-opening thread on twitter, here are the kind of responses netizens had to share –
6k stipend in 2018 because mbbs graduate in Maharashtra. pic.twitter.com/4RAKE4oNCO
— 🐈💣 (@GetMeAWaffle) July 11, 2019
800 in 2001 poor CA
— Boycott Bollywood (@ParagRudani) July 11, 2019
10,800/- in 2005 #FirstSalary
And to me, I was the richest person in the world— 𝕬𝖓𝖐𝖎𝖙𝖆 𝕿𝖍𝖆𝖐𝖚𝖗 (@Ankitaaa_) July 11, 2019
Rs 675 in 1976. I was 23. That seemed like a king's ransom.
— Pallav B (@NanOratoR) July 11, 2019
https://twitter.com/peelicaavi/status/1149381470663794688
Junior copy editor, INR 1800 as a freelancer, year 2007. Felt being richest girl on planet.
— Aditi Maheshwari (@kitabwali) July 11, 2019
RS. 500 as a stipend in a solicitor's firm in Mumbai.
— legally speaking (@IHemangp) July 11, 2019
To be fair, interns still get paid peanuts, and so do writers by the way…but to imagine that the same note that would’ve been enough for paying a down payment will now only get you down to the office, that too if your bargain well, is just too surreal!
