Daily Prompt: West End Girls

August 20, 2015

Every city and town contains people of different classes: rich, poor, and somewhere between. What’s it like where you live? If it’s difficult for you to discern and describe the different types of classes in your locale, Describe what it was like where you grew up … was it swimming pool and movie stars, industrial and working class, somewhere in between or something completely different?

Where I live right now it’s difficult to tell between:rich, poor or somewhere in between. Where I grew up everything was clear cut.

If you were rich you had a chauffeur driven car, more servants than kids, and every day was a day resembling Christmas. There was no shortage of food. Leftover was an unknown term. The rich always ate fresh cooked meal prepared by chefs. There was one thing which was very strange. The servants were not offered the same food as the masters. The menu for the servants was different, it was not anything delicious but lentil soup and rice. The servants were happy to get that.

Moving on to middle class i.e the in-between. They lived a restricted life, they had servants but one or maximum two. They did not have cars, rickshaws were the mode of transportation for them, it was cheaper and the people used them to get to work, school, shopping or visiting friends. They dressed accordingly, ‘they cut their coat according to the cloth.’

There were two groups of poor people, ones who earned their living to feed themselves and their kids, they walked everywhere, their mode of transportation were their feet. They did not talk about poverty but seemed contented.

The other group of poor people were the ones who begged from door to door for food, money and clothes. On Fridays all the rich, and middle class people gave money , food and clothing to the beggars.They did not get clothing and food every Friday, but once a month. They did get money every Friday.

On special holidays such as the holiday after a month of Ramadan, the poor people were given clothes by the rich and middle class families.

On Eid al azha another important Muslim festival, this day animals were slaughtered, depending on how much a family can afford, the rich and the ones who were slightly better off would sacrifice, a cow or two. The meat was then divided into three portions, one part was for the poor people, one for the friends and relatives, and the other part was for the families themselves.

Goats were sacrificed by the not so well-off middle class,because they were cheaper. The same thing was done with the meat it was divided into three portions and distributed to the people mentioned above.

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