I can't earn money. I've tried, of course. Tried hard. But I suppose I'm one of those who simply can't. And yes, we're quite a few in number.

Not everyone has the ability to plunge through life with a bank balance that insists on bursting at the seams every seven months.

Not everyone can wake up one morning, decide to start a business, then promptly buy a Mercedes or two a year later.

Not everyone can take on the title of 'Management Consultant' and con people into paying for advice the bania next door could give away free.

What's wrong with not being able to earn money anyway?

Why should we all have to look for it desperately, ignoring life, love and the possibility of reading a few good books along the way?

Why do traders always look as if they have little else to go on apart from the mundane business of buying and selling?

They have a lot more money than I do, but I can manage a smile every 15 minutes. Doesn't that count for something?

Okay, I digress. This was supposed to be a rant about my inability to earn money.

Let's start at the beginning

I started by waiting on tables for a while, when in college, just to see how much I could earn.

After a week of standing behind a buffet table ladling dal makhani into waiting plates, my tips touched the astronomical figure of 50. This, combined with the Rs 80 I was given per day, added up to Rs 530.

After setting aside the Rs 400 I had borrowed from my mother for travel and other expenses, I was left with Rs 130. After a whole week!

Boot polishers in Mumbai earned more in a couple of hours.

Selling spectacles came next. Not regular spectacles at regular optical stores, but ones made of cardboard and covered with silver foil. These little gaudy gizmos were being marketed specially for a lunar eclipse scheduled to happen later that month.

I was given a booth at Mumbai's Esselworld amusement park and asked to sell as many spectacles as I could. They cost Rs 2 each, and I was to earn 0.50 paise for every piece sold. Four days later, I had sold 8.

Money earned -- Rs 4.

Money spent on getting to Esselworld and back � Rs 145.

Did I learn my lesson?

No. I jumped into event management instead. For Rs 200 a day, I'd order clowns around, organise party tricks for bored 11 year olds, or struggle into mascot costumes myself when the mascot guys failed to turn up.

After a week of pure exhaustion, I was given Rs 500.

I was beginning to see a pattern emerge.

When I was little, I was told hard work was good. Persistence would pay! It was paying someone, of course, but certainly not me.

Nothing has changed

Years have passed since those early, tentative, elusive grasps at wealth. I continue, today, to fail miserably at earning money. Salaries from various sources have found their way to various bank accounts over the past decade, but little has managed to stay put. My understanding of the stock exchange has evolved only slightly from a time when I wondered why bulls were allowed inside.

The thing about earning money is that there's always something ambivalent about it. Some people draw lines; others do not. Some sit back satisfied with a thousand bucks a day, others salivate hopelessly at the thought of an extra Rs 50 before sunset.

I like to think of myself as someone walking the middle path. I need money, but not desperately. If there's enough for a film a week, a CD every month, and a holiday outside Mumbai every year, I'm complacently numb. Not everyone needs a million bucks.

If we all earned millions, what would the millionaires do?

By not earning money, then, I'm playing a small but important role. Without people like me, millionaires would wither and die. Without non-millionaires, they would have nothing to be smug about. I'm a lifesaver for many.

So, yes, I can't earn money. But I've realised that I couldn't care less.

I'm even doing this piece for free�

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Illustration: Uttam Ghosh