Man is obsessed with health. Whatever he eats or drinks, the first thing he will check on the label of the food or drink item is the calorific values. How much are the values of carbohydrate, energy, sugar, sodium, potassium, magnesium and God alone knows what are all the other things. Even in the drinks too, he will check all these things. As a result of which, we have Diet Coke because in a Diet Coke, there are no calories. Your body does not get extra calories of energy if you drink Diet Coke. Obviously, Diet Coke is more expensive. This obsession is not only in metropolitan cities but it is also spreading like wildfire to tier 2, tier 3 cities too! Everybody wants to be healthy!
This obsession has become a disease now. Man doesn’t want to drink tap water. It is a different case, in India, no tap water is potable. Aquafina, Bisleri, Kindle, Kingfisher, Himalayan, Nakshatra, Hello, Bebo, Basil, and many more names. Are you wondering what are all these words? They are bottled water brands. In tier 3 cities, you have a water purifying plant in a dukhan. You can go with your bottle and get purified water filled – for Rs. 20 – 20 liters. I don’t know whether this is an obsession when it comes to water or a necessity. I would prefer to call it as necessity because no tap water is potable in India.
I wonder why this obsession has not crept into life insurance which is a necessity in India. When it comes to water, an individual cares for his health, family’s health, children’s health and buys water. Buying water for Rs. 20 or Rs. 100 or whatever the case may be is not an expression of wealth. It is an expression of love towards his family. Take any father or mother – they won’t let their children drink normal water.
Why this kind of love is absent towards family when it comes to life insurance? Everybody knows that life is uncertain. Everybody knows that every day is a new birth. And everybody has their responsibilities towards their family. A father, a mother, children, every one of them are having their own responsibilities towards their loved ones. Why then nobody shows the same concern about their life and life insurance like that of bottled water? This is what I call Strangely un-strange!
I have no answer for that. Probably I can never give an answer! Can I say – when it comes to bottled water their love is real and for taking life insurance their love is fake? I wish the care a father or a mother extends to their loved ones for water should have extended in the shape of life insurance too for the sake of their loved ones.
About the Author
Dr. K. Raja Gopal Reddy is a seasoned internationally qualified Insurance professional. What you are reading here, may not answer all the questions we have, but has the absolute power of asking unsettling questions which increase the interest in the strange world, and show the contradictory wonders lying just below the surface of the commonest things of life. Look at this disturbing but beautiful thought of Friedrich Nietzsche “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him”.
Dr. Reddy can be reached at: raja66gopal@gmail.com
