The quintessential Indian value-maximising parents

Long ago, when I reached financial puberty and started earning enough to give back to parents, I made a mistake.

- Abhishek Asthana

Let me provide some context. Like many millions, I was a hardworking, middle-class guy, whose entire school and college life was optimised towards one goal - a decent campus placement. This was a journey ably supported by my dad's provident fund account and an education loan, a detail which was hard-coded into me by my mother: "He is going beyond his means to educate you." No pressure. There is a movie-worthy sob story in every household. And you are the hero of that story, who redeems himself post-interval.

So, as soon as I got a decent job after engineering college, the first itch was to give back. Transferring a lump-sum to your parental savings account is just rearranging the digits of their bank balance, and is totally not Facebook-worthy. It has to be something that they can rub on the faces of doubting relatives. Hence, you need something dramatic, something photogenic - like a luxury experience.