Srijesh Nair, Quality Manager at software firm Adobe for the last four years, has no savings today and, in fact, earns just enough to repay his Rs 17-lakh home loan and retain his four-year-old standard of living.

Despite a 10-15 per cent hike in salary, the sharp price rise (inflation at 9 per cent), increased family commitment (a seven-month-old child) and a dramatic spike in home loan interest rates in the last two years, have just about ensured that he stays afloat.

“For the next couple of years, life will be all about pre-paying the loan,” Nair says, who is aggressively liquidating all assets — employee stock options and market investments — to prepay his loan. “I have realised you must take a loan only if you can repay it in five years. Or, you are better off paying rent.”

He is not alone in the ever-increasing swell of salaried urban Indians — about six million and growing by the day — who have been the most hit, not just because of rising prices or inflation at 11 per cent but the higher interest rates and the demands of their improved standards of living. Unlike farmers who get a loan waiver, Nair and his likes are not seen by the political establishment as the aam admi, left to themselves to wage their relentless battle. They are victims of a political establishment still not waking up to the reality of a changing India in urban centres across the country.

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