Some time back, a ‘private wealth management company’ connected with me on LinkedIn. After my usual irritation at such unsolicited enquiries I told them sternly that in the event of having any wealth, I would be private about it. But more important: I hadn’t any wealth in the first place.
But they were good, hiding their insistence with a great deal of charm, politeness and giving me a ‘senior level professional and achiever in the sector’ treatement. I was intrigued and agreed to a video call. The call was a disaster from the start. Two men in pink shirts and faux western accents came on the call. I ploughed through a mire of assumptions, stereotypes, iron headed insensitivity and rapidly growing disinterest. But all of these I had encountered before. What rendered me speechless was the amount the Pink Shirts quoted as the ‘entry level’ to their services. I asked in all my disbelief and naivete – “And do professionals in my position regularly have this level of resources?”
Charm gone, and digging their hole deeper with each comment, Pink Shirt 1 suggested that perhaps I did not make the grade due to my many years in the not for profits sector. And Pink Shirt 2 added that had impacted the way I thought about money too, perhaps? Deciding that this was the end of the doomed conversation I announced that my cat was yowling and I needed to go.
I heard many incorrect, unfounded, in-accurate and pig headed remarks during the conversation, and wrote it off as the usual capitalist patriarchal ego baulking at anything that sat outside their carefully constructed grids. But the astonishment on both sides kept creeping back into my thoughts – their astonishment that only Y was the sum total of my worth. And my astonishment that all of X was the sum total of other peoples worth. And as many conversations had done in the past, it sent me ruminating on my relationship with money.
A relationship fraught with angst. And one, that was, despite a number of similarly fraught conversations, sometimes extreme obstacles, and my near complete inability to comprehend its nature, fundamental in my final understandings of freedom. The one conversation that was my watershed from non participation to an active engagement with my money, happened at the most unexpected location. And with the most severe of critics.
Some years ago, in one of the training centres I worked with rural Haryana, there was a tree planting event. It was organised by the members of the local womens self help group - Usha Jyoti Mahila Swayam Sahayta Samuh. Having planted a tree, I was complimented by some of the organising embers of the Usha Jyoti MSSS. on how well I had done the planting. I happily accepted the compliment, sharing that I had a little plot at home too and was very fond of gardening.
“Ah! So you grow your wheat?” one of them asked.
I thought of my little garden in south Delhi. It was generous by south Delhi standards but definitely not on the wheat growing scale.
“Wheat? No no it’s not the wheat growing kind of ……” I said and was cut short by another member. Who said, “You grow the vegetables then?”
Again I said no, I didn’t.
Did I buy vegetables then, I was asked.
I said I did.
They asked what I did with the land.
“I grow flowers,” I said.
“Good, good, we hear flowers sell at very good prices these days! Do you get a good price?”
I began to get an idea of where this was going, and said thoughtfully, “Actually I don’t sell the flowers.”
The women paused. And one of them asked somewhat suspiciously, “You have land. But don’t grow vegetables. You buy them. You grow flowers but don’t sell them. Tell us do you buy flowers also?”
I looked carefully at them and said I did.
The conversation faded from then on. And I thought I overheard them say to another group, looking at me from the corner of their eyes - “ That’s why she has to come to the factory to work every day, poor thing. She can’t manage her land and knows nothing about the markets or managing any money.”
I was the manager of the project that engaged with this womens group. And the manager of quite a few other projects in an enviable body of work on corporate social responsibility for a large manufacturing company. Returning to my desk that afternoon, I kept thinking of this discussion. The logic of the SHG women was irrefutable. And I came away thoughtful and humbled.
I returned home that evening and spent some time in my garden. The next day I went out and bought vegetable seeds and saplings of the season and planted them. The flowers stayed. But I added vegetables. And found to my joy that adding variety made the garden greener than it had been in a very long time. I also spent a long time looking at my bank balance. And doing similar things with it. Here too, the results were unexpected and exciting. Since then, its been a road of happy discoveries. Including the Pink Shirts who did hold up a mirror of sorts.
The alienation of women from their own money is a systemic aspect of patriarchy. It sits deep within our psyches. Years ago, I moved jobs from a feminist resource centre to a womens micro finance project. I firmly believed that I was, without doubt, a feminist. And yet, I neither questioned or challenged or even understood money and wealth. This was in spite of the fact that I successfully managed the micro finance project dealing with lakhs and soon a few crores, and mobilised hundreds of poor rural women into financial independence. But remained unmobilised myself.
At the macro level, this means that many banks and economic institutions have women leading them, yet when you ask women what they want in life, their responses are more ideological, even spiritual. In another milestone conversations on money, the late Kamala Bhasin rued, “Whenever I ask women what they want to be or what they want from life, they have the longest answers, yet not one has told me that she simply wants to be rich. Why is that so? Why don’t women want to be rich?” She had looked at me and asked, “Well, don’t you young things dream of being rich?”
But patriarchy and capitalism could not the only contributors to my delayed financial emancipation. My politics leant to the left and I was a Bengali to boot. In money terms, anything beyond a salary (preferably earned through intellectual means) was viewed with suspicion if not outright dismissal. There was also the family to consider. My parents’ families had survived Partition better than most. Both sides of the family were able overcome the trauma, settle into respectable jobs and stable families. We lived comfortable middle class lives. And yet, even in families like ours, where arguments, opinions and political debates were part of our lives, I do not remember any discussions on money. These were families of academic achievers and that was the role to follow. We heard stories of financial difficulties post Partition, but what seemed to matter was that they had been overcome. Making more money was not a necessary outcome. And I grew up not thinking about money.
The effectiveness of this alienation and cultural construct is proved by the fact that a conversation with a feminist of Kamala Bhasin’s power did nothing much to change the way I thought of money. I came away admiring her, as always and thinking how good it would be for me to have some more money. I always remembered what Kamala had said, but never learnt anything to make it happen for me. Many conversations on money and wealth over the years would trigger a sense of unease. Many meetings with women already well along their way to better financial health or well behind me in the journey would get me thinking. But it was finally that conversation at the tree planting event that was my tipping point.
Never mind that today my net worth is Y. It is better than minus Y. I am also wiser (pun intended) Am I saving large sums of money, now that I eat home grown vegetables? Not necessarily. But viewing my garden and my money as resources which I should optimise has given me far greater self confidence and stability than before. Am I no longer a leftist or a feminist? No, I still am. To quote one of my favourite feminist beliefs - “You cannot use the masters tools to destroy the masters house.” True. We can’t. And the first step to creating our own tools is the understanding of the masters tools and what they do for his house.
As of now, according to Niall Ferguson, the list of people who imagine a world without money includes “ …communists and anarchists - not to mention some extreme reactionaries, religious fundamentalists and hippies…” perhaps one day this list will be different. Perhaps one day we will find an alternative to money. But while we look for alternatives, I will earn my salary and pay my taxes.
I may never make it to the entry level of the Pink Shirts’ expert services, but I do hope I can now hold my own with the Usha Jyoti womens group. And who knows we both may find our own tools. And Kamala’s questions may live on in her absence, seeking, challenging, questioning, changing………
