Is the middle class sleeping?

The middle class is sleeping! In the last few days, there have been so many issues that the middle class should have participated generously in, but sad to say that it hasn't. The reason our plastic money culture that makes us feels empowered even when we are in a huge debt. We love to swipe our cards, even when we are aware that the recovery calls for the last swipes are still haunting everyday.

Vegetable prices have broken all records; essential commodities come at a price that not many of us can afford. But ministers blame us for the price rise, saying people have started eating more and we, the middle class who should have revolted, take it lying down.

We are aware of the right and wrong but we prefer to keep mum. Gone are the days when even for a slight price rise, women used to come out on the streets holding a big steel thali with a spoon and would go to the office concerned and throw a fit. The sound of the thali and the spoon was so loud that the authorities would take immediate action.

Yes, the middle class has also turned into a silent spectator. We know that our neigbhour is a wife-beater, but we prefer shutting our door so tight that we cannot hear the cries of the poor woman. When anyone beats another on the streets, we prefer to walk away; when a girl is being eve-teased, we prefer closing our eyes and if someone is doing anything wrong, we say, when the others are not helping why should I?

Just two days ago, I was travelling in the first-class compartment of the last local train, a rowdy gets in, starts smoking and even spits in the compartment, everyone is making faces but no one dares to stop him. Mind it, there were no less than a dozenu00a0 commuters in the compartment, but when one got up to stop him, the others pulled him down saying, we are educated people why should we get into this jhagda, jhanjat.

Yes, we, the educated middle class, are aware that we need to fight for our rights but then we ourselves are so divided. Now the question is which middle class should fight. The upper middle class, the lower middle class or the middle class? Who is to be blamed no one knows. Even the television shows have started portraying middle class as families who have no less than two bungalows, three cars and half a dozen servants?