Opinion

Why we must all learn to #SayItLikeNirmalaTai

Azmia Riaz

I have to admit my guilt before beginning this essay. I am guilty of having fallen prey to millennial vices. In fact, I am currently writing this article on a modern desktop computer, completely betraying the typewriter industry on which my profession was built. 

I am grateful for the enlightenment I have received though. We, as a generation are wasteful and mindless like our prestigious Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman has pointed out. On September 10, she told the media, "The automobile industry has been affected by the mindsets of millennials who now prefer to have Ola and Uber rather than committing to buying an automobile."

Since reading her words, I have thought day and night about how we can change these mindsets of ours. Let's begin with the issue she brought up. How can we make enough money in the economy that was handed to us by the thoughtful baby boomers whose voice she represents? Instead of downloading wasteful apps like Ola which unnecessarily saves our carbon emissions (thanks again to the baby boomer warriors for showing us the way there) why have none of us considered downloading the Olx app and selling at least one of our two kidneys to help resurrect the automobile industry by purchasing our own car? Again, it is our wasteful mindsets.

We can apply Nirmala Tai's (the endearing pet name that fans on the internet have lent her) words in most areas of our life, if we are able to abandon our greed and wasteful tendencies. Replace our Airbnbs with old shady lodges, create a small vegetable farm in our backyards instead of relying on Swiggy and replace this time consuming 'cashless economy' and physically borrow cash from our 10 major national banks. Wait, scratch that last one because that may not fall under Tai's definition of wasteful. But for everything else, let's learn to #SayItLikeNirmalaTai!

(Views expressed here are the author's own. While not moonlighting as a fake dietary consultant, she imagines horribly creative ways to disembowel the average human with exceptionally poor humour)

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