Time, Technology and... generation. Part 2

(continued from previous post.. )

 

"ye naye zamane ke ladke... " every generation bollywood movie has got this dialog. I used to think that 70's and older movies would not have this line. But a little bit of research helped me to derive the correct fact - the dialog has been the asset of the bolloywood for many a generation now. Like the ancestral property, the line has been inherited by all generations. So the theorem thus proves that every new generation gets deviated from the rules-of-good-book by certain degree. And every deviation of every new generation is aided by a new change that is remarkable in that generation - Movie, computer, internet, fashion, and the latest spoiler of current generation - the mobile phone and tablet pc. Every new generation deviating  got drifted away from the complex business of understanding the religion and its underlying fundamentals.

Lord Krishna says in Geeta “I provide the intelligence to human beings, how they use it is left to them”. Why go till Geeta, in the hit Hollywood movie “Bruce Almighty” Morgan Freeman says the same line. Technology has been developed by the humans with the intelligence they r gifted with. How do we use it is again dependent on us. Mobiles are used by teens for what not these days. But the same can be used to access social networking sites and share useful information. Recently I happened to watch the movie Oh My God and I instantly shared the good dialogs and scene pics of the movie. Many a people liked it.

The movie tried to expose the dirty affairs regarding the self-appointed religious heads (swamijis, christian fathers and maulvis) and showed how foolishly people are getting duped by them. Huge sum of money flows into their fold due to innocence (if it can be termed like that) of people.. There are a lot of rituals which many people follow in various religions. With the change in time, people started to ask questions behind these. Unavailability of people who could provide proper answers has made the younger gen loose faith in their respective religion. The movie OMG had an excellent message. If you don’t understand the rituals, fine. Instead of going behind the magic-making-self-appointed-swamijis and wasting crores of money, donate it to the people in need. Help the human kind (or at least that is what my conclusion was after watching it). Both the movie and the book have helped me a lot for answering so many questions that I myself had.

Thanks to the authors like Amish and Ashwin Sanghi who have made good attempts to decode the mythology and making it an interesting topic currently in the market. Amish's books gave out a message that "Gods are human beings, who became god due to their good virtue". Lord Krishna in udupi turned around in diametrically opposite direction, to give darshan to his famous devotee kanakadasa, thus creating the famous kanakana kindi (the window of kanaka) in the holy temple in udupi. Recently, i happened to listen to the pravachana that is read by purohit during satyanarayana vrata. In that, purohit explains as to why the vrata is so sacred. It seems Lord Narada asked some question to the Lord Vishnu(forgot the correct question) for which the lord replied that "for the sake of simplicity of the people of kaliyug, who are under delusion and always pressed for time and dedication for god, it is enough if they worship me by doing this higly simple vrata. No need for them to do any difficult yaga and homa as this vrata will be equivalent of all of them".  There is plenty of opportunities around us to feel the god and get answers for anything related to mythology. Only dedication is required i feel.


While Movies such as OMG might have helped us build the faith, there are some movies which might have acted in negative way although unintentionally.  The way the divine weapons (or rather magical weapons as one gets tempted to say) are shown in the war scenes of certain mythological movies have been matter of fun for many people. I too had this question as to how come there could be weapon of this kind in that era. But I was proved wrong. With every new Yuga, the knowledge of people goes down, opposite of what we thought. So these technology products such as Mobiles, computers and weapons of modern times are not greatest as we have believed. Just consider this – the fact that sushruta - the father of surgery, existed such long ago itself is the proof of great knowledge that the ancients had. There could have been so much of science knowledge present in those times that all the things which we read in mythology such as a person coming out alive from near-death situation, passing thru fires, building highly sophisticated palaces are not because they are connected to gods in some or other way. But due to the help of science! The fact that science was present during that time has been ignored and thus when we read such miracles without keeping the fact (of existence of science) at the back of our mind, either of two things happen i.e. we may either get forced to believe them without any logic since we believe in god or one may loose faith completely since we don’t find any logical base for that.

(To be continued... )

Time, technology and ...... generation - Part 1

And one more bday came and went. Lots of wishes, lots of calls. Good to talk to so many friends on the same day. I feel good that at least on this day, my mobile battery gets spent on the actual functionality for which the mobile was designed - call and text, rather than on listening to FM and music.

Looking back, i feel quite amused as to how we manage to survive without this electronic gadget. These days, it doesnt matter where a person is located? just dial his mobile number and talk to him. If there s not much to talk, just text him to convey the short message. Cities has grown, it is practically not possible to go and meet friends and relatives easily. Not that it was easy before, but the lifestyle too has changed now. I still remember my first year of engg. Mobile was just making its entry into indian market then and it was a expensive device. Even the incoming call was as expensive as 16/- per min. Only Airtel was offering the service then. I was staying in a room in mysore. Owner was in ground floor and our room was in 1st floor. My mother used to call to the land line number in owner's house and the maid used to shout from the window. I had to rush down, wait beside the phone sitting on a sofa till my mom called again.

Monsoon season is very tricky in mysore. One can hardly predict whether it will rain on that day looking at the sky. It would start raining all of a sudden and sometimes wont stop for hours together. One fine day, when me and my roomate went out for first time after joining the college in 1st sem, it started raining cats n dogs. We had to wade thru knee deep water thru the center of city to reach the city bus stand (majestic of mysore), catch the bus and reach our room. It was not too late and so i wasnt worried much after reaching our destination. Vignesh, my roomie, quickly rushed upstairs and i was following him when i heard the maid shout out my name from the window. I was dripping all over and certainly didnt quite feel like taking a call from home at this situation. I stood in front of door. As soon as she opened it, she started questionaire. Apparantely, my mom had called some 3-4 times in eve and was eager to know where i had been. Being still new guys, and that too jst out of teenage, there was certain amount of apprehension in owner's mind. So there was a huge burden on us to convince them that we are not smokers/drinkers or making-merry-on-dad's-money kind of guys. I told her that i will change and come back. After 20mins, when my mom called, i spoke to her and there wasnt even a small degree of worry in her voice since she knows me very well. Since it was the first time i went out, she wasnt quite used to know that "I can/need to go out". If only i had the mobile then there was no need for the maid to show off her attitude, nor i had to listen to her and answer her questionaire.

It was only in 3rd sem that i got my first mobile. It was a great relief for me as well as my roomie since we could talk to our family sitting in room itself. All we need to do was give a missed call to dad's mobile and within a couple of mins, the mobile would ring. It was definitely a great relief. As time progressed, more and more functionalites got added to the small hand held gadget. Now it is hard to see people sans their earphones plugged to their ears. Whether they listen to FM/Music all day long? I wonder. And for girls, there are only 3 things. Either they will be talking to companion (girl/boy) who are with them, talking on mobile or listen to FM if they r alone.

(To be continued.... )

Along the way

Recently, I completed reading the 3rd book of Ashwin sanghi - Krishna Key. The book was brilliant. Lot of research was being done by the author around the Krishna-Dwaraka-Shiva. But at some corner of my mind, I felt that it didn't match the brilliance of his earlier book - Chanakya's Chant. The way he had structured that story, creating the fictional version of Chanakya's story which ran parallel with a contemporary story set against the current affairs in politics, the charm was missing in his latest offering. I thought I might have not concentrated properly while reading it (there were just too many proofs for various beliefs related to mythology) and hence I felt so. But when I browsed the net, I got to know that many shared the same opinion as mine.

That made me to think about myself. I was introduced to the Writing-hobby when the Newsletter team in the project in which I was working in my 1st company invited articles or other contributions from the project people. I just wanted to give it a try and submitted a imaginary story which if you ask me even now, I feel there was nothing special in it. Well the rest was history and I think I have discussed already about this in another post. I was a hero overnight and this overwhelming reaction made me to take up blogging where I made a promise of writing regularly, just to break that promise later.

None of my contributions to the newsletter received any special reaction after the stupendous debut I had. People started stacking it up in their To-do list of the day, since they knew that there would be something in the article but definitely not "That something" so as to give it first priority in the day. No, I'm not saying that I felt let down or that I stopped blogging. None of them happened (well, blogging went on to become more and more less frequent). But I wanted to pour it out from my heart here and tell to myself that it is really so hard to be a writer, to win people's satisfaction, to churn out that-really-interesting-story regularly, to deliver something fresh and new each time. And when I see this feat being achieved by so many authors out there, I feel so great about them. I just sit and admire about their creative abilities after finishing the last page of that book written by them.

For a writer to get new ideas, he has to be in touch with people. People from different walks of life. The more we converse with people, the more broader our ideas get. The more fodder for our brain. Recently, I  felt that I wanted to be in a profession where I could meet lot of people on daily basis - a doctor, a Public servant etc. MY friend who was working with Marketing division of a very famous MNC used to share stories about the people who he used to meet from Govt dept. owing to his sales responsibility. There are other friends who being doctors, have to meet so many people, whether they like it or not. "The toughest assignment while doing M.S is when you are posted to govt hospitals. So many people die daily just because they cannot afford the treatment cost in pvt hospitals, where we ask them to move the patients due to non availability of facilities in the govt hosp".  I asked him how it felt. "Initially there was lot of agitation inside... the urge to hit someone, shout at someone..... do something... something to save them...... but gradually we started to admit that we are helpless..... " A pause and then we force the smiles on our face and switch the topic.

My mom is an ardent fan of Sudha Murthy (not sure if I have made a mention of this in my earlier blogs). She just loves them for one reason - practicality. No other novels are so close to reality - she tells me. There is a reason for that. Being part of the Infosys Foundation (charity trust), she has met Millions of people, both good and other side of good. And her books are nothing but the reflections of her experience with them. My personal favourites are - Mahashwetha (I just love it. Had tears in my eyes at several junctions while reading it), Gently falls Bakula.

To put it more broadly, meeting people will give inputs - inputs turn to idea. IF you are not a writer, the idea can be learning lesson. There you are. This is nothing but the basic theorem of life. Meet people, watch good movies & TV programs, read books - everything that gives input for us to handle the different challenges that the life throws at us. "If you don't do now itself what you want to do , you will repent after 20 years about it..." My friend told one day while having lunch in my favourite Fish restaurant one day. I was discussing with her my desire to learn how to ride a geared bike and to own one. But my parents were totally against it. Apart from the desire to learn it, I wanted to switch over to a geared bike from activa to save on my monthly fuel bill. "I think you have to go for it... millions of people ride bike.... if you think you can ride it safely and have self control, what is stopping you? " My friend concluded. There I was, being firm on my decision to buy a good economical and "Safe" bike, I conveyed it to my parents. Though there was a slight reluctance, my mom agreed looking at my confidence and not without giving a disk full of safety instructions.

There is definitely lot to discuss... But I don't want to bottle up whatever I've written so far and work on it later and make it a lengthy and boring to read. Instead I will divide it and would make it interesting to read. If my decision doesn't change, I will come back with part2 of this.....

"Buy this, or else.....

Every year the period from March to july (sometimes till august) is the best revenue period for Newspapers. This is the period when most of the competitive exams results will be out and the colleges will start giving ads in various newpapers to show "their" achievements.

Recently, i was attending a training. The trainer there made one excellent comment on the business tactics that the various industries survive upon. Not tactics, its just one single "Tactic" that they make use of. And what is that?"To sell something to a customer, prove to the customer that he is going to be a loser without that".

Take one simple example - fair and lovely ad. Always the company makes one (several aspiring models) to believe that they cant survive in fashion and related industries (media, news, entertainment channels, sport etc) if they are dark complexioned. If we go by their view, Kajol should not have entered bollywood. People who dont trust their own natural abilities and talents, fall prey to such misleading ad campaigns and start loosing their self confidence. The ad, if not anything else, makes one to think about a newly created problem (not being fair skinned) and the talented person drains his/her energy completely on that useless, stupid problem, instead of planning to move ahead towards the goal.

That was an example of how unfairly this fair n lovely co has been promoting their products (beware - recent studies has shown that these fairness products contain harmful chemicals like Mercury!! Please be very careful with such kind of shady cosmetics which claims to improve the shade of your skin). I fail to understand why people are so obsessed with changing somethings as skin color, nose shape, etc, which are god given and our personal identification characteristics.  ultimately, one fine day we all have to leave this body here and go back to pavillion from where we came. We will not carry this body nor whatever we have earned here. Why this obsession? Why cant we live in peace with what we have got naturally by the grace of god? Are we afraid of being a subject of gossip - "look at that curly haired guy..... see see, that girl thinks she is kajol or something......... look at that bulgy nosed girl..."? It is this fear that the cosmetic companies, the beauty parlours etc are using as their "tactics" to survive upon.

Lets get back to the point which i mentioned in first paragraph. Recently, while in mysore, i was reading a local newspaper. There was hardly any news in that except pages n pages of ads of various high school toppers in SSLC and PU toppers, put up by their respective schools and colleges. I failed to notice any difference between these institutions and the insurance companies ads that are coming these days. Both try to drive home the one single point - "Plan for future". While the insurance co shows how badly the situation gets at the time of any accidents or other health problems, if we dont have the insurance (a genuine way actually, but show some sensitiveness also), the educational institutions try to fool the parents and students that  if they are not studying in their institutions, they dont stand to get a chance to win the rat race - potential cause of worry in future. The child - even though talented and having god gifted iq, gets carried away by the ad and starts losing his/her confidence. Same goes with parents too.

Two movies made me to realise how vulnerable we are in the hands of this news channels - Rann (hindi), Aarakshan. Both Amitabh bachan movies. The former movie shows how the news channels, in their bid to be the top channel, twists and tweaks the truths and present it to viewers.  its this mad race for gaining the TRP's that the news channels are fogetting the ethics of the journalism profession and doing whatever it takes to be at the top.

Aarakshan shows how the coaching classes are thriving these days, due to the highly competitive entrance tests existing in our educational system today. As the ads show the photos of succesfull candidates in IIT, IAS exams etc. Parents start to panic - what if my child fails to make a place for itself in this space? Or to put it other way, and the most probable reason that haunts the most of the parents is - what if our neighbor's/relative's/colleague's child makes it to the top institute and my child fails to do the same? Fear drives out the confidence from the minds of both the parents and the students. Unless a student gets enrolled himself in Bansal coaching classes in Kota, he will not have a remote chances of making it into any of the 7 IITs. This self created fear consumes the most of the energy in the victims mind, making it to loose confidence in themselves ( A human mind has a something called as energy which drives one to achieve what it wants - to reach to a goal, to complete a work, to do something in general. It heavily depends on how a individual directs this energy to achieve the goal. This was explained in our traditional books as well as scientifically proved recently.  if required,  we can google and check more info on this).

Lets take a look at 80's and 90's - a period when the fourth estate - the news industry was not muddied by too many players. There was one DD1 on which we were dependent for the news and a Indian express newspaper (or a regional language newspaper) - which though expensive to afford, was the commonly used news paper. With the cost of ads at peak (due to non-availability of too many choices like today), these shady educational instis and coaching classes were not having a option to create a fear in the minds of students and parents. The result was that more number of self-confident, naturally talented, self-coached students were making it to the top institutes in their respective fields. So what has happened today? Ofcourse i'm not telling that the students those days used to think that it is dead easy to crack IIT-JEE or UPSC or AIIMS medical test. But atleast, they(the naturally talented folks) were not wrongly lead to believe these are the only career options to survive and so you have to join coaching, read our materials, and what not, to be able to crack it.

I strongly wish that we - the society stops getting fooled by the ads. Be the owner of our choices. Dont give away that freedom to some companies. Lets be genuine in our choices. Lets not loose our self confidence. Lets start doing what we love, what we have envisaged as our goals, what we know as our natural talents, what we think will help us to live in peace with ourselves and with the society.

Let me end this blog with two interesting facts - in US, in last 1 decade alone, more than 50% of news papers have closed down as the citizens there have realised how foolish they are to read those stupid news. In Kerala - a lady who was a nurse by profession, cracked the UPSC exam twice. Once she scored 560th rank which she felt was not good enough and hence took it for 2nd time and got 50th rank!

Shirdi Nashik Tour

5 days & 4 Nights, 3000+ Kms, 2 days and 2 Nights spent
in train journey - the stats sounds very impossible to imagine. But not when
you want to have darshan of the Lord of Shirdi - Shri Shirdi Sai Baba and one
of the 12 Jyotirlings of Lord Shiva at Tryambakeshwar in Nashik.


Yes, with the gods blessings, Me and my mom were able to
accomplish this. Like how it was mentioned in one of Sai devotee's blogs - its
not possible to have darshan of Shri Shirdi Sai Baba without his divine
blessings - all i want to say here is that, though it may look like the tour
was planned by me, it was just because of Lords blessings that we were able to
have his darshan and I was merely acting as his instrument.


On one fine day in end of jan - begining of Feb month, I
just casually proposed this idea to my mom about a trip to Shirdi. Mom agreed
instantly. All i had to do was book a train to shirdi, since my mom cannot
travel in bus for long distance journey. I thought that if i manage to get a
LIC guest house booked near shirdi by dad, we will stay there overnight and
return to bangalore the next day. Once the proposal was accepted by mom, i got
down to train ticket booking business since i had heard that its very difficult
to get ticket to shirdi by train since many people visit the holy place and
hence tickets are booked very well in advance.


As expected, the tickets to Kopergaon - the nearest station
to Shirdi - were booked till the 90th day (the max limit which the railways
website allows you to book your ticket in advance). So this option was ruled
out. My idea was to plan the trip during the Ugadi festival day since it is off
for me on that day & with one day of paid leave, i get full 4 days for my
trip. But with the disappointment of not getting the tickets, the planning took
backseat for a couple of days. I really dont know what happened after that.
gradually one fine day, from the sources i dont remember now, i came to know
that Shirdi is 4 hours journey from Mumbai. The plan was restructured now.
Instead of going to kopergaon by train, we will go to Mumbai and stay there in
my aunt's (Mom's dearest elder sister) house and from there we can go to Shirdi
by either bus or taxi. Bingo, the idea got its approval stamp by mom. A formal
announcement was made on this regard to others in my family as well as to my
aunt, uncle and their son - my cousin, in Mumbai. My aunt was happy hearing
this. But they didnt pay much attention to other details like - whether they
should join me n mom, how to go etc. But neverthless, the idea got its stamp of
approval from both the stakeholders. Thus, i booked tickets for me n mom
(Asking dad to accompany us on our tours during the month of march - financial
year end month - is like asking my dearest sis Nikitha not to read Novel during
her semester vacations!!) for to and fro journey.


The catch - while restructuring the plan, the fact that we will be going to mumbai failed
to get registered in my mind properly. It never striked to me that I will
hardly get one night of stay in my aunt's house. Neither did my mom realise
this.


March 21st 2012 - 8.10 P.M Sharp. Location : Majestic Railway
Station, Bangalore. The Udyan Express left bangalore at 8.10PM sharp. The train
chugged its way through Kar, AP and Maharashtra, reaching mumbai at 7.30 PM
sharp next day. My Aunt and uncle were at Dadar railway station an hour before
the train's arrival - despite knowing that the train is on schedule !! It took
another 1.5 hours to reach home at Borivili east.


March 23rd - 6.15 AM. Left the home at early morning to beat
the weekend crowd and traffic in Mumbai and get out of the city at the
earliest. My cousin, with the help of his friend's network, had booked a Innova
taxi well in advance. we Had the breakfast at a restaur in the outskirts of the
city. when we were out of the city, in Mumbai Nashik Highway, we noticed large
number of small groups of people walking along the side of the road. SOme were
even walking bare foot. Later my cousin told that they are all going to Shirdi
by walk!!! They start on the day of Gudi Padwa (ugadi) and reach Shirdi after 7
days!!! I was speechless. How much effort may go into planning for such holy
tasks.


We reached Shirdi around 11.15 am. By the time we were
standing in the q it was around 12 and the aarti for the lord started. So we
had to wait till it got over and then the q started moving. It took nearly 3
hours altogether when we finally came out after having Lord's Darshan. In this
blog, all that i want to write is how the lord led me to his place and gave his
darshan to me. Because this is the only way I can repay him - by helping his other
devotees to know my experience. The one
that i find it difficult to explain in this blog is the beauty of the moment
when I had his darshan. I jut dont know how i can explain that. For all those
who are having that desire in their mind from long time - to get the blessings
of lord - this is my suggestion : Please do plan it today. Lord will take care
of rest of the things.


we had lunch in a hotel in the shopping mall just behind the
temple campus and started to Shani Shingapur. I dont remember the time exactly,
but we reached there well before the sunset and had good darshan of Lord Shani
there. The place is around 80 km from Shirdi and lots of shared taxis go there
from Shirdi. Like it was mentioned in one of the blogs, you need not search for
a taxi to go to shani shingapur, the taxi wallahs will search for you:)


9.30 PM. We reached Nashik. It took 15mins of roaming inside
the city before we located the LIC guest house (make good use of the company
resources). The building might have been built by british, said my cousin, looking
at the room situated one floor above the terrace !! But for 300 rs, it was the
most cheapest & best room that one could get. We stayed overnight here.


24th of March 2012: 6 am. Thanks to my over cautious uncle -
we all got ready withing the self imposed deadline of 6 am, even if it meant
that the common bathroom and toilet had to be seized and banned for use of the
guest of another room till then!! We first went to Panchavati - a place where
the river godavari meets with another river. This place has some significance
with the Holy Ramayan. (forgive me for ignorance of complete knowledge of this
place. I had not imagined that we could go to Nashik within 2 days and one
night!! So i didnt make it a point to google, before starting on the tour).
Then we went to sita ki gumpha - a underground temple dedicated to Godess sita.
As per my uncle, Sita did her penance here. Note : if you are a obese, stay
away from attempting to reach this temple thru the narrow steps leading to it
under the ground.


After having the breakfast, we started towards
Trayambakeshwar. My first visit to a Jyotirling temple situated in North of
india ( The only other jyotirling temple i visited was Rameswaram, way back
during my 7th std). What to explain about the natural beauty of this place. The
whole place is covered by mountains of different kind, which you hardly get to
see down the south India side. It seems the temple is located at the origin of
River godavari (i assume so, not sure though). Its a beautiful place. It took 2
hours for Darshan of the lord. The temple is built by one of the prominent
Marathi King. The temple has beautiful carvings on its walls.


5.45 PM: Reached home in Mumbai. I wanted to do so many
things within the 2 hours time we had, before we left to railway station. But
all that i managed to do was, answer nature call, take bath and go out with my
cousin and buy a few of my fav mumbai-special food - Dahi Kachori (please for
god's sake dont imagine the dahi kachori that we get here in Bangalore),
Dabheli, small kachoris, Pav bhaji etc. Dont ask me how much of it i ate (or rather stuffed) there itself and how
much of it we packed and took along with us to bangalore.


7:15 PM - Cousin got a taxi to go to Dadar railway station.
Mom, Aunt and me felt really bad for having not stayed in home properly for a
day, even after coming so far. I had tuff time explaining my mistake ( please
refer to "Catch" paragraph above and do understand me). It was time
to say bye and leave. Aunt and cousin accompanied us to the station. (Due to
the concern and love of my aunt's family, hardly have i ever ventured out on
mumbai streets all alone. They dont want us to go out alone and get into any
trouble in the megacity of our country. Due to this, I always feel like a illiterate
village guy whenever i step into mumbai city.)


8.30 PM: Reached the crowded Dadar station. Spent 1 hour
inside the train talking to aunt and cousin. Ofcourse the often discussed topic
was the mistake I did by not spending a day more in mumbai and one more
important personal family topic. But at the end of it, the happiness was
visible on everyone's face - my mom, aunt, cousin and well..... me (yeah, i
experienced it). Train left at sharp 9.30 P.M.


25th March 2012: 10.45 PM. Reached yeshwantpur station,
Bangalore.

Sachinnnnn sachin

And it was finally done. Aishwarya couple named their baby
after 4 months (wonder what they were waiting for ), and immediately sachin
scored his 100th 100 thus getting renamed as TONdulkar by media.
It was all a confusing types on a single day. I was not able
to understand why the media seemed to be so relieved knowing that the AB's
named their baby. I understand that they are celebrity couple, but it went too
much this time. More than the AB family, i felt the media was worried with the
unnamed baby(they even went to the extent of naming it Beti B for temporary
sake. Like the Temp registration for cars). Today morning when i read in the
paper about this, I was made to think as if even I was waiting for this to
happen. The news was really forcing us to believe whatever silly news they had
to sell. Foolish me. [putting this within brackets to avoid self-embarrassment.
In spite of such silly news being stuffed into that movie supplement of the
paper, i still continue to read it. So to summarize it, the above view point
may not indicate that i'm super fed up with this supplement paper. Rather it
may be indicate how i waste time in reading such useless stuff and later make
fun of myself. Confusing isn't it? That's what i said at the beginning of the
paragraph!].

And its time now for people to air their opinion. But
thankfully, i was part of a evening Tea-group which used the ocassion to
discuss innovative scenarios out of this milestone of Tondulkar. So, what are
the takeaways for Bangla after this historic milestone? The bowler can tell his
kids n grandkids - "See, he scored his 100th run of 100th 100 in my over.
see see... ". To help him further, cricket channels will keep airing this
innings till eternity(borrowed this word - eternity - from a fb update on same
topic ;) !! increases the impact of the sentence).

Back to the office, I was made to attend a meeting (why
didnt i take my bike key while going for tea-break??????). Outside the meeting
room, typpical indian ishtyle statements started to come out of the
self-proclaimed cricket experts. "So did he announce
retirement?""No no, he will announce it tomorrow". "Only
against team like Bangla he can score". "Ya, bangla, Kenya....
(pause).... Afghanistan". Afghan?? How on earth could you imagine them
even play gully cricket ?

Then it was our country's finance minister's turn to slam a
similar slap on us with his budget. The day just ended with lot of confusion. I
kind of ended up linking the two incidences of the day. When i logged into my
laptop and opened the IE, the default homepage opened up msn.com which was
showing the slides of rare photographs of master blaster. The different phases
of indian economy was visible in those snaps(i thought). When he started his
cricket career, hardly any sponsorors where there to sponsor his bat or jersy.
Post 91-92, when the indian economy got liberalised - opening the doors for
global market - the changes started becoming evident. WILLS replaced POWER from
his bat . MRF then dethroned the Wills occupying a permanent place almost till
he reached his 90th century. The indian team jersy suddenly felt the pressure
similar to real estate. Companies started fighting in tender wars to get a
prominent place for their logo on the jersy. All this signified how the govt's
monopolistic grip on the country's economy, due to socialistic policies, got
loosened and liberated as the time progressed, thus letting the market to
incubate the new companies as well as welcoming the global majors. Even the
cricket stands seemed to be a witness for this. Growing job markets offered
more employement opportunities for the people. This made them afford the luxury
of buying tickets to watch the match at stadium, buy the team jersy,
after-match celebration etc.

But then, i had a fear whether i've been thinking too much
about indian economy. Because, i felt i've become so insane in linking Sachin's
photopgraph with Indian economy. will any normal cricket fan will do this? I
quickly closed the browser and started watching you tube video!

Bottom item: I had this question in my mind recently as to
why i write blogs and waste time. The only answer i could get was that it makes
me happy to see my thoughts getting a shape in form of a blog. when the mind
seems to be too much troubled with overflow of various thoughts, I put it in a
paper and give it a shape. Thus i can take off the load out of mind, as well as
give a shape to the thoughts.

Tirumala - By steps

For the 2nd consecutive time, I went to Tirumala by walk
from Tirupati. But unlike last time - when I went from Srivarimettu
(Chandragiri) , this time I went thru the much commonly used walk way -
Alipiri. And like my earlier post - travelogue on Mantralaya, I am going to
enter my experience here.


Start : Left bangalore at 10.10pm sharp in KSRTC Volvo and
reached Tirupati at morning 3.30 am ( as usual I had got sleep around the time
when we reached. so woke up with burn in eyes, but with less intensity this
time around since I was logistically well prepared this time around and had
slept tight the night before, knowing that I dont get proper sleep during the
night journey , that too in such short journey of 5 hrs).

The walk paths : There are two walk-ways leading to Tirumala
from the bottom of hills.
1. Srivarimettu - (Chandragiri) - approx 10 - 12 km
from the Tirupati Bus stand. This is supposed to be oldest of the two routes.
There are approx 2000 odd steps in this route. There is no buses (as per my
knowledge goes) to this place. Hence you may have to take an auto. When i went
last year (2011), the auto wala charged 180 R.s . Fair enough i thought since
he honestly told us that he wont get customers while returning at such early
morning time (approx 4.30am). Free darshan tickets are issues at approx half-way
mark. Security check on the ticket will be put when we reach close to the top.
This route is better for the elderly people and those who cant walk for such
long distance as Alipiri route (which I explain next), since the Darshan ticket
and facilities that come with it are going to be same for both the route
options.

2. Alipiri - Approx 4K.M from Bus stand. Approx
11-14 km, 3550 steps. But reaching here is quite easy compared to earlier
route. Because this point starts from Alipiri Toll gate itself, through which
any bus going from Tirupati to Tirumala has to cross. All you need to do is to
buy tickets to Alipiri from the same ticket issuing counter in bus stand, where
they give tickets to Tirumala. Ticket fare - 5R.s. But they wont allow you to
take seat in the bus since the preference is given to those who travel till
Tirumala. No its not partiality. The Buses are not supposed to go to hill with
standing passengers, as its banned by AP Police. The buses wont even pick
passengers from anywhere apart from bus stand. So, once the seats are occupied
with those who travel to hill, they allow passengers with alipiri ticket, in
standing. Since its hardly 4KM, its not a issue at all.


Start from Alipiri : around 4.45 am we started our
expedition. I was surprised to see such a huge crowd at this early morning
time, climbing steps with us. The path is maintained so clean inspite of such a
huge traffic of piligrims using it. Not a single step you need to take on mud
way! Entire path is perfectly laid with stone steps, maintained clean by an
army of cleaners employed by TTD. The whole path is well illuminated by
tubelights at ceiling and both right and left side walls. There is security at
certain points, to protect the piligrims from any anti-social elements. Also,
ambulance is stationed at 2500th step for emergency needs.
Divyadarshan tickets were issues at Galigopuram junction - 2083rd step. Lot of eateries are
here in this junction where people take light snacks or tea or soft drinks to freshen up for
the remaining part of the journey. But i prefered not to take anything since I
didnt wanted to take any risk of vomiting or any other problem.


Reached : Around 8.20 am we reached the top - covering the last 3550th step. It was a
wonderful feeling to achieve this. Like everyone, we too walked barefoot by
carrying our footwear in plastic hand bag. But owing to the excellent
maintenance of the path, I didnt even had a single scratch or stone-pain in my
foot. Also, it was good experience walking barefoot over different surfaces and
climatic conditions - the stone laid steps, the concrete path in between, the
tar road stretch (at certain point in tar road stretch, there is natural water which drips down thru the rocks on the left. This water is so ice cold that even though we tried our best to avoid it,
we had to walk over it for some 10 steps where it had crossed the road. Legs became numb after walking over it) at chilling cold climate.


Overall it was comfortable journey I would say. We got the darshan within 2- 2.5 hours
after we entered the Q hall ( for almost an hour we were seated in a waiting
hall, which is better than standing in Q continuously). I could say that its
god's grace that we were able to do this. For all those who want to go to Tirumala,
and thinking about taking walking route, I would say go ahead. God is there to
guide and support you.

Economic Marathon

“Over next 10 years value of 10,000/- will not be as much as what it is today. SO start investing today....” You might have come across this kind of ads many times daily. Have you ever wondered why this happens? What is inflation? Why can’t we stop it from happening? Let me try to take you thru these economical jargons, with simpler way of explaination ( noo, trust me... stop yawning... this will not kill you to death, honestly).

Defining it -
Inflation is the state of economy where the value of the money drops. Now what you mean by value of money? 10Rs is 10 rs. It can’t be 9 Rs due to inflation rite? Yes, true. But look at the currency note at your hand. What is it? Nothing but a piece of printed paper. Where does it derive its value from? Before answering this, let’s look back into history. We all know that earlier, gold, silver and copper used to be the mode of currency. Gold being very valuable, we never had any doubts whether its value would diminish over a period of time. But owing to its limited supply, there was need for some alternative for this form of money. Thus came a new system of money - FIAT currency.

Hisssssssstory
The democratic Govts. of different countries (read US of A), came up with an idea. Why not keep the gold in our own safe and print currency papers equivalent to value of gold? This will remove problems like transport of gold, minting of gold coins, deterioration of the coins in circulation etc. Thus the paper currency came into existence and along with it new terms such as inflation, deflation, recession, depression and what not. Last but not least, it lead to the origination of this article!

Owing to growth in population, industrialization and advance in agriculture etc., the economy started to expand at gradual speed. And over the decades, GLOBALIZATION converted the world into a village - the whole world is your market for your products, not just your own country. The economy started to grow crazily. What is the base of economy? Money. Rapid growth cannot happen without the availability of constant flow of money. But if the Govt has just 200kg of gold worth of say 1lakh rupees(cough, cough… I was just trying to give example, so those who know the price, please don’t start cursing me, and those who don’t know the price, please don’t start googling, you can avoid massive attack on your heart), what to do now? Print more money of course. A common man like you and me don’t have time, energy or courage to go and ask our PM what amount of gold is there in our RBI’s reserve. Naturally more currency will be printed to sustain the growth in economy!!

Eurekaaaaaaa

This printing of currency notes, more than the worth of gold in the treasury, continued fine for a while. People were not worried as long as the entilligent (economically intelligent, don’t worry, I shall coin more and more such words in the course of this article) guys discovered the truth. But once they did, they didn’t stop at just unearthing the bitter truth that nobody wanted to hear, but also coined the names like inflation, deflation etc thus prompting the Govt to sit and listen to them (There you go, first step at guessing wrong answer. No, the Govt didn’t stop printing the currency. Who else is better equipped to solve the problem than one who discovered it? Thus, like IAS, we now have IES - Indian Economy services, which is less heard among our people). People started to panic when they realized that the stacks of currency bundles that they have in their lockers is nothing but paper, and can lose its value over a period of time (like perishable food). The Govt was thus shaken from its deep sleep. It had to do something to bring in the confidence back into people mind. The only way that the value can be restored into money is by making its supply limited - which means; put the brakes on currency printing pace!!!!!

America Geschichte

What US does to keep the value of dollar, not any other country can do.It follows simple formula – value of anything is directly proportional to its demand. Now, how to achieve this? Make the world to do day to day transaction in dollars. Ah come on, are you kidding me? Beware, if you don’t fall in line, you could be next IRAQ of the world. Yes, in simple terms, like a teacher forcing the kid to learn by waiving cane at hand, scare the shit out of the national govts and make them use dollar as common currency in international trade that they do. More and more demand for dollar makes its value go up in international market and voila, it becomes a pseudo gold now!! Well, that is it? Come on, I may be kidding myself if I say so when the Americans themselves have exposed their dirty tricks in movies like Green zone, Shooter, Bourne series, Vantage point etc. They forced nations to do oil trade in $ (yeah, u got it now why petrol rate sky rockets every time the $ value appreciates?). But that did not meet their expectations still. So what next? Well, the world is so so huge, isn’t it? Then why not dump the industrial produce in all the countries and make them pay in $ for this? But, the world will agree? Ah, just come up with one more fancy economic term and coerce the leaders of the countries to sign the agreement. Wow, Good idea!! So what could be the new term? Hmm, it should be something that sounds very complicated to understand. Yes, GLOBALIZATION will do. And what you see and buy in the fancy malls of metro are nothing but these stuff dumped on the developing countries by the Americans.

Back to theory

Enough, let me not deviate my topic and get deep into the America’s dirty secrets(Well, as a matter of fact, I didn’t even start it I think). Let’s come back to core discussion of inflation now. So not all the nations can imitate America's methods rite? So what are the options available to it? There is one and only one option - control the supply of currency, as I mentioned before. Too much of money in the system means everyone has the power to buy the things (How cruel, Why shouldn’t everyone have money? Ah, first sign of economical sentiments. Need to keep it in control, since we will bump upon more such senti-situations as we proceed). But unlike money, things cannot be printed by the govt. So it means that we all go and attack the limited supply of goods with the currency, leading to the fall in its (money) value. Suddenly, you begin to realize that the stacks of cash are not able to meet your daily requirements. This drop in the purchase power of the money is nothing but inflation!!

Ok, so now naturally anyone will say let’s not be so stupid in printing currency. Let’s keep its supply limited. Is it a smart option? A big NO. A country has to develop constantly. And development is nothing but technological improvements in industrialization, agriculture etc. which can lead to their increased output with better utilization of resources, thus helping us to afford them within our budget. In Economics, stats play a very imp role. So, now that I talked about growth, naturally we need to measure that, so that statisticians can statitise its statistics. The economic growth is measure by a parameter called - the GDP - Gross Domestic Product. It is nothing but the total market value of all the final Goods and services produced within the country. So for the country to develop, we need a constant growth in GDP, which means, constant supply of money!!!

Now, Don’t blame me for putting you in a fix as to decide what is the solution out? Printing more currency or not printing more currency, both seem to be invalid option. Then, what needs to be done? There is no perfect solution for any problem in economics, only “The nearest best solution”(That’s why I always think, If the need comes, becoming economics lecturer is best option. You don’t even have to worry if you don’t know the answer, or if you give wrong answer in the class. “Son, this is economics, not math class. Don’t be the Rancho of my class!!”). So let’s see what they are.

Entelligence at work
A govt has to estimate what should be the growth rate for the current financial year. Based on this data, it can estimate the amount of currency to be in circulation, to support the growth. So considering all this, the central bank of the country - RBI in our case, takes a call to decide the quantum of currency it has to print for that year. If everything goes as per the govt’s estimate, like a bollywood rom-com, there is no cause of worry for anyone. But, fortunately or unfortunately, it can never be as expected. There will be over growth in GDP during a particular quarter of the year, and the inflation will begin to see upward trend. But why? Why the over growth triggers inflation? Simple. Increase in industrial output means more profit for the industry, which can happen only with increase in employee headcount, and to keep pace with more demand in pipeline, it has to still increase the headcount. Now, the supply of skilled workforce will also be limited (yes, in country of billion people!!) which means the wages will go up. All this directly means that more and more people will gain the purchasing power, often chasing behind such goods which are limited in supply like food, housing etc. Thus kick starting the process of pulling down the rupee value.

RBI-di.. Why this Kolaveri di??

Its time now to see how the govt and central banks control this inflation. In order to put brakes on the over growth, the central bank has to tighten the tap from where the money flows into the system - Banks of course. When central banks print money, it funnels that into system thru banks. (That is the reason why banks make profit so easily. Being the first in the pyramid to get the money from RBI, they get it at cheaper rate. By the time they make it available to public, the prices of most of the essentials would have shot up and the customer, who wants to buy it, will have to inevitably come to these banks and borrow the money at whatever rates they are available!! Daylight robbery!!). The RBI which made the money flow freely into the system thru banks, now turns the tap in opposite direction. The way it does this is very interesting. It will first tell the banks that they now have to pay more rate for the money that they borrow from it(RBI) - i.e the Repo rate (repurchase rate) will be increased. Next, it will lure the banks saying, it will pay more rate for whatever money the banks keep with RBI - Reverse Repo rate will be increased (thus the money with banks keeps reducing, sucking their liquidity). Banks will have no choice but to park their funds with RBI now. Why? Very simple. Whenever the repo goes up, the banks will pass on the burden to its customers – in the form of increase in interest on housing loan and big ticket loans to industries. This will increase the default rate due to the rise in EMI’s, meaning it’s not safe anymore to lend the money to public. So left with no option, banks will think that it’s safe to park funds with RBI instead and reap the benefit of rise in reverse repo. The money tap of RBI will work in opposite way by sucking in whatever it had let flow out of it!!

But banks are not charity institutions. They are business organizations and naturally they find it irresistible to not to lend money, since there are people who are willing to pay increased cost for borrowing it. When RBI senses this, it will use some more tools available with it to rein in the banks (yeah you can imagine RBI to be charioteer and the other commercial banks as horses). Theoretically, a bank accepts the deposit from public and lends it at higher cost to borrowers thus making the profit from the spread available (theoretical definition). For every 100 rupees that the bank accepts as deposit from public, it has to keep 9 Rupees with RBI, as risk capital. This is nothing but Cash reserve ratio or more famously - CRR. Yes you got it right, if the CRR is increased, the amount available for the banks to lend will go down thus limiting the supply of money in system. Now, in worst case, if the inflation is still not coming down (rare case, thankfully), RBI will ask banks to keep with it certain valuables like Gold, Govt bonds(G-secs) or money, in addition to CRR. This is called SLR - Statutory liquidity ratio. (Straying out of the topic little bit here. If you are interested to see the difference between US English and UK’s, the word Statutory is the best example. Just go to any online dictionary sites and use the “read out” option for US and UK version. Really funny. But my mom never makes out any difference. No, not at all funny, cos I need to explain to her now that US English is like Bihari Hindi blah blah..).

The decrease in money supply will bring down the IIP - Index of industrial production (brother of GDP), bringing down the economic growth with it. People now start cutting down their monthly expense, put off or delay the car / home purchase decisions etc. Money value slowly starts increasing as the retailers - the shop owners, showroom owners, home developers etc start offering their products at cheaper and affordable rates (but still see downward trend in demand). And the cycle repeats. Thus the economy of any country has to follow a cycle. It can never have an upward growth always or the downward (though the later is becoming reality now. US is still clueless about their economic condition and Euro-zone is still battling out the worst crisis ever happened since its creation).

But it’s not always advisable to use the same methodology to control the inflation. There are several other ways. As the economy grows, the supply of money also goes up. To avoid its value from falling, the supply of essentials has to keep pace with the growth in economy. This can be achieved with use of technology in the critical sectors – agriculture and industry to boost its output. Thus the food inflation (or the WPI) will be under control. Also, use of technology in agriculture will stop the migration of youth from village farms to city and towns in search of more lucrative jobs, thus reducing the pressure on the over-growing cities. Not everyone will try to own a home or own a car when he gets an increment in his pay or gets a new job. So the pressure on reality sector is relatively less when there is growth in economy.

The Palace of illusions opens.
Its time now for moving out of theoretical definitions of inflation and to look at it from the macroeconomic point of view!! Yes, whatever you read till now is just 10 %( or even less) of what the reality is! Let’s now look at the practicality of economics. Most of us don’t dare to open a financial news paper owing to its boring color and look (I hate that orange-ish color of ET). And those who do it will see the word “FISCAL DEFICIT” a min of 10 times even if they just glance through the headlines. Alright, here I’m going to introduce one more term. So what is this fiscal deficit? It’s a routine for every salaried person to have his own expenses every month like EMI’s, bill payments, rents etc. When we take the net effect of it per month, the money whatever is left with him from his salary, is his savings (Please consider an austere salaried class person for the example and not a guy who finds it difficult to control the joy and luxuries that this world offers, though his salary cannot afford it). The same applies to the Govt of our country. It has the sources of income like revenue from tax collection, excise, dividend from PSU’s etc (excluding the money borrowed from public) and it has its own expenses - that of public welfare program. The catch here is that, the expenditure of the govt is always more than its income - which is called as “Fiscal deficit”. Welcome to the world of most confusing economic jargon now. From here afterwards, whatever is written here is solely my viewpoint. It can be right, or wrong depending upon the personal view of anybody.

A govt has to spend money to kick-start the growth of the State. This spending could be towards the infrastructure, food security, social welfare programs etc. This spending is done with several goals in mind such as

1. To push up the demand, by way of improving the things like infrastructure and other things which will improve the employment, accessibility to the goods etc. This in turn increases the productivity of the industries to meet the demand that comes up, thus increasing the revenue to govt in terms of tax and excise duty payment.
2. To Control the inflation - a controlled fiscal deficit means the demand for money is maintained at steady rate, neither increasing it nor reducing it, thus making the rupee more attractive for foreign investment.

The fiscal deficit may sound like a negative thing. But it is actually essential part of economy. Like inflation, this factor also has to be maintained and controlled carefully.
When the money is spent wisely, i.e in the projects which are going to generate the revenue after its completion then, the money whatever the govt spends is recovered over a period of time. For example, if the govt promotes the SEZ for textile industry in certain regions, more and more companies will there. The increase in output generates more excise revenue for the state as well as central govt. The tax payment by the employees will increase the tax revenue. Also, this will benefit others indirectly - like the real estate demand goes up, the city/town standards of living will improve - prompting the municipalities/corporations to take up the development of the town... the list goes on... so in longer run, the govt is going to get back whatever they have spent.

All is well??
I warned you that the palace of Illusion has thrown open its door. But, you ignored the warning. You now have believed that Govt has to constantly keep spending more and more so that money value is maintained constant, since anyhow I have showed how in long term the govt will get back its investment. Rite? No. The govt spending is justified as long as it really brings in the required kind of revenue for the govt as well as promotes the economy of state. But in contrary, it can lead to uncontrolled inflation. In order to bridge the huge deficit that can arise due to errant spending, the govt will resort to printing more currency as last option. This unplanned flow of money could result in the loss in its value. Even if the govt goes for borrowing money from market (instead of printing), it has to service the debt by paying interest for it, thus leading to increase in the interest rates (Interest rate increases mainly because the money value goes up with time and demand, and one cannot expect to borrow the money at same rate always). So what is the solution? Simple. Wise spending. Agreed that social welfare is responsibility of the govt and it has to spend money for it. Even after more than 60 years after our independence, malnutrition and hunger death are still common. Govt hospitals lack basic infra to serve the poor. Hence the govt has to look after the welfare of its citizen by spending for them in order to eliminate these social problems. But what our govt is doing in this direction is totally absurd. Let me quote a few examples from the articles that I read -

Very recently, Sonia Gandhi has realized (when the UP election was announced) that people are starving in our country even after so many years of independence. So she told her PM, sorry our PM Mr. Manmohan singh to ensure that the poor will get the foodgrains at cheaper rate. A simple analysis would show how stupid this can be. The PDS (the same old ration shops) is already ridden with all kind of illness. Now, more subsidy for this food security bill means extra burden on the already cash strapped govt. That's not all. If a person starts getting a kilo of rice at 2Rs, he is bound to become more lazy than productive, as expected by govt. Beggars will suddenly start finding their income to be more lucrative. And last but not least, due to the amount of food grains required for this scheme, the foodgrains available for rest of the people in market would reduce, thereby shooting up the prices!! If you ask me what is the other solution, I would frankly admit I don’t know. May be we can strengthen the existing PDS logistics itself. Help it overcome the problems plaguing it. Make use of AADHAR id - ask BPL people to open a savings account by linking it with the UID and update it in some database. Any kind of financial assistance then could be directly credited to these accounts! This is called targeted subsidy which is current buzzword.

To give one more example, a couple of years back, the govt brought in Rural employement gurantee program called MNREGA. Although it sounded great, like any other ambitious govt program, it was soon plagued with the corruptions and scandals. Under this program, a person who registers for the scheme is guaranteed some min. days of employement (in doing various blue collared labor like construction of dams, canals etc,) at 150Rs/day (not sure about the current rate). This turned out to be a nightmare for farmland owners. The laborers who were working in the farms, quite obviously, started quitting it and registered for the program. This made the wages for laborers to go up significantly. That was not a big prob. But a more detailed survey revealed that people started to sell their land, keep the money in bank FD, and then registered for the program also, thus getting the dual benefit of constant inflow of interest income as well as the guaranteed wage per month!! What is the solution for this now?

The Million dollar question

The above discussion will now obviously brings us to one question - why does a govt should have deficit when it has the power to print the amount of money that it wants? Now this question can send Amartya sens of economics crazy. There are multiple reasons behind why the govt cannot do away with the deficit, and I will try to mention only a few which I know (meaning, those which I understood after reading in net). If u remember what you read in initial part of this article (what an insulting question to ask!! Conversely, the question tries to assess whether you are suffering from Ghajini-disease!! Apologies for my stupidity. I was just trying to wake you up from terrible sleep induced by highly terrible boredom, caused by this article), I said that the govt prints currency equivalent to the amount of the gold that it has in its treasury. It was a blatant lie (I Can hear the screams. But I’m helpless. Please forgive me). Owing to the limited supply of gold, long back the federal govts of most of the countries decided to stop using the gold as the backup for printing the currency!! This happened mostly during 70’s. At that time, most of the countries decided to tag their currency to the dollar. i.e 1$ = 35 yen etc. But like everything, this also had to change, owing to various reasons. So over a period of time, the mode of currency valuation evolved based on the govt policy of the respective countries.

So coming back to my last question, why fiscal deficit is required? This answer that I'm going to share is purely my own opinion (I know its repeated, but wanted to drive the message loudly). Just like an ordinary salaried class person, the govt’s credit worthiness (ability to service the debts) is determined by its capacity to handle the deficit. As I said earlier, to manage the deficit the govt will issue bonds (in other words, borrows money from public, banks etc). Just like how Banks disburse the loans to creditworthy individuals alone (Ok, at least lets assume this is true for time being. If needed, we can discuss about Subprime crisis) and not to the people who spend more time near Jhonny walkers or Hard rock cafe instead of their homes, Investors in govt bonds also do the investment only when the Govt is trustworthy in its spending initiatives. The countries get credit ratings, just like the corporates or individuals. And FII will invest in the govt bonds only if the credit rating of that country is good enough. Which means, the Govt spending should be aimed at economic growth of the country, which implies that the environment for the industry to grow and expand is satifsfactory, thus leading to generous income for the govt. Any drop in investor sentiments can be disastrous for the country, as seen in euro zone now.

Lets take a peep into the much discussed Euro Zone crisis, which can help us understand the need for efficient handling of deficit, in a better way. The countries there decided to have a common currency called euro. Though this had many advantages, it backfired for a few economically backward countries like Greece and Portugal. The govt there are not able to manage their deficit due to its failure in attracting any investments, and hence the inflow of money has got completely stopped. To add to their woes, the ECB (common central bank for the Euro currency - European Central Bank) is not obliging to buy their bonds. There is no need to add that these countries don't even have the option to print the money, since it’s not in their control. Hence these countries are on verge of economic breakdown now, unless otherwise rescued by ECB or other member nations of EU. It has to be noted that the euro has not lost its value because of this crisis. But what uses of this stability in its value when the member countries will fall like chess pawns? Countries like Germany are exceptionally stronger and the great Britain has completely avoided the disaster for itself by not becoming a member of the union itself.

Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna
I can go on and on and on this topic. But for anything that starts, has to end. And therefore I’m stopping at this point now (sigh). Before ending this marathon-article, it’s time for me to introspect. Several incidences or the articles motivated me to write this article and share my thoughts. The subject of economics is very interesting since it is based on statistics. Stats can be twisted the way the person who is going to do a presentation wants it. But in the examples that I picked, I abstained from showing any stats, since I believe that the stats are used most of the times to prove something as wrong, even when we know it’s not!! But, I didn’t have any such intentions here. In the course of writing this article, I had the chance to read quite a few newspaper editorials on same topic, and not to mention the GOOGLE. One of the sites was completely of the opinion that huge fiscal deficit never leads to inflation since the expanding economy can act as a cushion by increasing the supply, thereby keeping the price rise under check. I don't know how many will agree to this viewpoint, given that we can never guarantee that this, and only this way alone it shall happen always when the deficit gap is widening.

Another instance I would like to share here is regarding the article that inspired me to write about the wastefulness of food security bill. I read the article in the night before going to sleep, and I naturally decided to reproduce the same here in my article the next day. I’ve mentioned that the food security bill leads to inflation because of drop in supply of the food grains for non-BPL community in free market, as well as drop in productivity of the BPL people. I was sure that I've reproduced the same what I’d read, though something inside me kept asking me to read it again to confirm. For next few days, after I completed writing about that piece, I forgot about it completely. But two days later, I came across the same newspaper copy and the same article page (as I had not folded it back properly after reading the editorial). But to my surprise, the editorial there had expressed completely different opinion. He had actually mentioned that in raising inflation times, increase in subsidy expense towards food security bill means increase in fiscal deficit. Paralelly, the RBI would be tightening the money flow taps, in order to control the inflation, thus slowing down the economy. This further leads to increase in deficit due to slump in inflow of revenue. Thus, the larger picture would be that, the govt prints more money and the inflation would still keep rising up (due to more money in system), thus pushing up the food grains price and the subsidy bill along with it. All complexly interwoven, never ending chain reactions. But what surprised me more was, I had actually ended up giving a different explanation altogether when I was discussing this issue above!! Strange me..

I actually wanted to discuss about the liberalisation, the license raj that was existing pre-liberalisation era, subprime lending, recession etc in this article. But I stopped from doing it because the main subject I wanted to discuss here was about inflation - causes and control. Hence I decided to refrain myself from discussing about them. It has been really very tiring to compile so much of information. The mood kept swinging each day, and I had to exert a great deal of pressure to make it work in my favor. The boring topic that I had selected made me extra careful to retain the interest of readers (eager to know what extent I’m successful). I had to be choosy even in picking some humorous lines, since I didn't wanted to dilute the effectiveness of whatever I was discussing(ah, pretty smart way to duck the comments, on the quality of humor). Thanks to Mr. Sidin Vadukut, whose blogs gave me an idea how and where to insert the funny comments in write-ups (yeahh, you now know who to blame if my humor or the too many bracketed-statements have had any negative impact on you ;) ). It was a good experience for me too. This actually increased my admiration towards a few of my fav authors, who write such huge novels. How much effort has to go into making such wonderful literary works. The biggest of all is to make sure that your personal feelings/ emotions/ and happenings in life doesn’t reflect in your writings. I hope I’ve done my home work correctly here. Would love to write more like this, based on the feedback I receive. Till then, it’s resting time for my ever-typing-rest-deprived fingers!!