Middle class, Upper Caste, private job- True Story!

I am a normal person. I pay all my bills. Water bill, Electricity bill, this bill, that bill every single bill. I pay all my taxes too- Road tax, income tax, sales tax, what not! I have my ration card but I can’t get any subsidized items because I don’t fall in the poverty line according to official definition. However I use it as an address proof. I buy rice at 45/50 per kg and dal at 200/kg (New price you see :D) I earlier bought onion at 80/kg too. I don’t have a white card because I don’t get medical problems (Or maybe am supposed to afford all the private hospital fee along with all the taxes paid). I did not get any reservation in my school, college and even for my job because I belong to the upper caste. I paid all my fee right from my schooling, there was no remission in spite of being a top performer all the time. I could not get into a government job because I could not compete with less capable people protected with multiple layers of reservation like nominal fee, lesser cut-off marks, age-relaxation and reserved portion of seats. I bear the hiked prices of petrol, inflation and tax hikes too. I buy my own LPG, yes the subsidized one which costs around 600 per cylinder. Sorry, couldn’t afford to give it up because I have to pay my child’s school fee of 25,000 per year in addition to all the above expenses. And as everyone else who wants a bright future for his/her child, even I want to send him to a private school, I have no choice. I even have to save for my daughter’s marriage because she isn’t eligible for the ‘kalyana laxmi’ scheme because she is an upper caste girl. I also have to plan for my retirement because I work for a small private firm where we don’t get pension benefits and I don’t fall under ‘Atal Pension Yojana’ as I am not poor.

Now when am back from my office after a tiresome day struggling to make the both ends meet and wish to hire a maid to do the daily chores and asked her how much she expects her salary to be, she says she doesn’t want to work because she’s got a free 2 bedroom flat, rice at 2/kg, other household items at nominal prices, white card for medical support, fee remission for her children and monetary support for her daughter’s marriage!