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Dried Altruisn

My friend N and her husband are in the garment and fabric business. N designs upholstery and such, her husband works for a garment exporter. With the pandemic impacting their lines of work, he had been laid off from his job and N has had to take a fifty percent pay-cut. This is an established household with three school-age kids a couple of pets, home and car. The retired parents of N are dipping into their pension to  help them keep the grand-kids enrolled in school while the couple figures out how to get back on their feet in Mumbai. N has a younger sibling whose business has thrived during this time. He was affluent to begin with and now is quite rich. There is a certain squalid quality to this story - the younger sibling standing by as his sister is forced to pull her kids from school unable to pay tuition. To make it worse, the parents who don't have much to begin with are stepping in to rescue. 

The larger circle of friends and relatives have heard about N's woes but no one is willing or able to step in to rescue. The times are equally uncertain for everyone, there is no desire for grand gestures right now. No one there has the means to support a family of five in Mumbai for an indefinite period of time. Those kids need to go to school for the next five to seven years. The job that N's husband lost is likely not coming back anytime soon. And even if it does, it may go to someone who is a lot cheaper to hire than him. It is only a matter of time before N is let go from her job - that is her understanding of where things are headed for her. She has been offered a life-line for now. People are spooked by the turn of events in N's life - how quickly it all fell apart. N has become the canary in the coalmine and others are thinking it may be them next. Such fear dries up any desire for altruism very quickly. I am guilty of that myself.

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