Rajesh uncle’s Samsung flip phone rang at 11:47 PM. Again.
I was sitting across from him at his small Andheri flat, nursing a cup of chai that had long gone cold. His wife had already retired to the bedroom, exhausted from her own long day as a schoolteacher. But Rajesh uncle, a senior software engineer at a prestigious MNC, was still tethered to his laptop, responding to emails from his “onsite” team in California.
“Beta, just five minutes,” he whispered apologetically, his fingers dancing across the keyboard with practiced urgency.
Those five minutes stretched to forty. When he finally closed his laptop, I noticed the dark circles under his eyes had deepened since I’d last seen him six months ago. He was 52 years old, earned ₹28 lakhs per annum—a salary most Indians would consider enviable—and yet, sitting in the dim light of his living room, he looked utterly defeated.
“You know what the worst part is?” he said softly, staring at his laptop. “I’ve been doing this for 27 years. And if I stop working tomorrow, everything stops. The EMI on this flat, my daughter’s engineering college fees, everything.”
That conversation haunted me for weeks. Here was a man who had traded nearly three decades of his life, hour by hour, rupee by rupee, and was still trapped on the same treadmill. He couldn’t slow down. He couldn’t stop. And he certainly couldn’t afford to fall sick.
The Great Indian Time Trap
We’ve been fed this narrative since childhood: study hard, get a good job, work your way up, retire with a pension. Our parents believed it. Our teachers preached it. Society celebrated it.
In my neighbourhood, people still point to government employees with reverence: “Sharma ji ka beta, sarkari naukri mil gayi.” As if a government job—trading 35 years of your life for the promise of stability—is the ultimate achievement.
But here’s what nobody tells you about trading time for money: it’s a trap dressed up as security.
My friend Priyadarshini discovered this the hard way. She worked as a content manager for a Delhi-based startup, pulling 12-hour days, working weekends, sacrificing her health and relationships for a “good salary” of ₹15 lakhs. Last year, during a particularly brutal October, she collapsed at her desk from exhaustion. The diagnosis: severe burnout and anxiety.
Her company gave her a week off. A week. As if seven days could undo months of grinding herself into dust. She returned to work, still unwell, because her salary couldn’t afford to pause—not with rent, not with her parents’ medical expenses, not with the personal loan she’d taken to buy that “investment” car.
“I’m 32 years old,” she told me over coffee at a Connaught Place café, “and I’ve already sold the best years of my life. For what? A salary that disappears by the 25th of every month?”
The Autorickshaw Wallah Who Taught Me Everything
But let me tell you about Ramesh bhai.
I met him three years ago when I took his auto from Bandra station to Kurla. Unlike other auto drivers who seemed perpetually frustrated with Mumbai’s traffic, Ramesh bhai was cheerful, humming old Kishore Kumar songs.
Curiosity got the better of me. “Bhai, you seem very happy. Business is good?”
He laughed. “Business? I stopped doing ‘business’ two years ago, sahab.”
That confused me. “But you’re driving an auto?”
“Three hours a day, sahab. Morning rush hour only. That’s it.”
He went on to explain his story. For 15 years, he’d driven his auto 14 hours a day, seven days a week, barely making ₹20,000-25,000 a month after expenses. His health suffered. His family never saw him. His children grew up with an absent father.
Then, during the pandemic, forced to stop working, something shifted. He realised he’d been on a hamster wheel, running faster and faster but never actually getting anywhere.
So he made a radical change. He started a small YouTube channel teaching people Marathi—Maharashtra’s regional language—to non-Maharashtrians. He filmed videos during the day, drove his auto for three hours during peak morning traffic, and spent evenings editing and engaging with his growing audience.
Today, his YouTube channel has 4,50,000 subscribers. He earns ₹1-2 lakhs monthly from ad revenue and course sales. He drives the auto because he enjoys it, not because he needs to.
“Sahab, now I work for myself. My videos work for me even when I’m sleeping. That’s the difference.”
Ramesh bhai, with his limited English and no formal education beyond the 10th standard, had figured out what Rajesh uncle with his engineering degree never did: your time is finite, but your impact doesn’t have to be.
The Shift: From Time-Trader to Value-Creator
Here’s the uncomfortable truth: in India, we worship the idea of “hard work” without questioning what that work is actually building.
My friend Pranav worked at an IT company in Bangalore for eight years. Long hours, stressful deadlines, the whole package. Then he started a side project—a simple app that helped small kirana store owners manage inventory digitally. He worked on it for just 5-10 hours a week, whenever he could squeeze in time.
Two years later, that “side project” was generating ₹8 lakhs monthly. He quit his ₹18 lakh job. Today, he works 20 hours a week, travels twice a year, and has time to pursue his passion for photography.
The difference? He stopped trading hours for rupees and started creating value that could scale.
What Does This Mean For You?
I’m not saying quit your job tomorrow. That’s reckless advice, especially in India where family responsibilities are real and safety nets are thin.
But I am saying this: start questioning the trade you’re making.
That software engineer pulling all-nighters for a 10% annual increment—what if those same hours went into building a product, a course, a consulting practice?
That CA working 16-hour days during tax season—what if you systematised your knowledge into digital products that could serve hundreds of clients simultaneously?
That designer trading time for project fees—what if you built templates, courses, or a subscription-based design service that wasn’t limited by your waking hours?
The goal isn’t to stop working. It’s to start building systems, assets, and income streams that aren’t directly tied to your time. In India, we call this creating “passive income,” though I prefer “leverage income”—because it still requires work upfront, just work that compounds.
Start small. Start scared. Start while you still have your job.
Maybe it’s a blog about your expertise. Maybe it’s freelancing that could become a productised service. Maybe it’s investing in dividend-paying stocks or rental property. Maybe it’s a YouTube channel like Ramesh bhai, or an online course, or a digital product.
Breaking Free: The Indian Way Forward
The point is this: every hour you invest in building something that outlasts your immediate effort is an hour buying back your future time.
Rajesh uncle is still taking those midnight calls. Priya is still exhausted by month-end. But Ramesh bhai is humming Kishore Kumar songs, driving his auto for fun, while his YouTube videos work for him 24/7.
Who would you rather be ten years from now?
The choice, as they say in every Mumbai local train, is yours. But the train is moving, and time—that most precious Indian commodity we so casually trade away—waits for no one.
Not even for a good salary.