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!!

A trip to Mantralayam

I don’t want to delay this anymore. A lot of people seem to be under impression that its difficult to go to places like Tirupati and Mantralaya. They will have reservations about the travel options or the accommodation. In this blog, I will discuss my experience of going to mantralaya on 31st dec of 2011. I will also write a similar blog on Tirupati also shortly.To start with – the travel options. There are a plenty of buses from Bangalore to mantralaya run by KSRTC!! Yes KSRTC and not APSRTC even though Mantralaya is in AP. The reason being, over 80% of people there are kannadigas and also more than 90% of pilgrims who visit there are from kar (yeah this may evoke the first question, y den it is attached to AP. Honestly, I don’t know the answer. For that matter, more than 60% of infrastructure in and around Mantralaya is built by kar govt only!!!! ). The journey is more or less 8 hours (approx 430km). Roads are far better now than what they used to be earlier – given that 55 to 60% of the distance is covered by NH running from Bangalore to Hyderabad ( which is being converted to 4 lane now). Though you can get tickets online easily, its better if you book it well in advance during peak seasons like New year day, aradhana, special Thursdays etc. Apart from bus, there are Trains to mantralaya. The drawback here is that the railway station is some 15 km away. But not to worry, there is shared auto – plenty of them. They charge 25 bucks per head and 150 rs if u r not willing to share with others. If you ask me, I prefer train. I booked ticket in Udyan express which left Bangalore at 8.10 pm and was supposed to reach Mantralaya at 4.30 am, but reached at 5.30 am. (beware, if u oversleep then you will reach Mumbai!!). The moment we came out of railway station, a huge number of autowallahs jumped upon us, almost pulling us to their auto. We reached mantralaya at about 6 am.Next – accommodation. This could be a challenge at peak time. Mainly because there is no reservation in the lodges managed by the Mutt. But don’t be worried. There are more than 6 to 7 lodges now which are built and managed by Mutt (including AC ones). Though there is no advance reservation (except for the donors), almost 85% chances are there to get a room in any of these lodges even on peak days. But there are a few things to be noted here - 1. Though there is one central reception office, not all the 7-8 lodges are managed by it. So if you see “rooms full” board there (in CRO), please don’t think its end of road. 2. How to locate and check in other 7 or 8 lodges whether any rooms are available there? Agreed that this could sound challenging, but not in Mantralaya. The lodge staffs are extremely helpful and polite. If you don’t get room in one lodge, ask them where else you can find. They would let you know. If you want to know the directions, ask the security guard at temple gate or any guy who is in the Mutt’s uniform and badge (Yes, Mutt has recently started giving its employees the badge and uniform, to keep the touts and other middlemen at bay)3. Is it difficult to run from one lodge to another? Before I answer this, I want to make it clear that there are very less chances that this may happen. As I said before, 85% of the times you will get room at first lodge itself. But if your luck falls in that 15% category then also, its not difficult for you to go from one lodge to another, considering the fact that the whole place is not even bigger than two Chinnaswamy stadia put together. If there are elderly people who cannot walk easily then, make them sit in waiting room of any one of the lodge while you go on search.4. This whole task of finding vacant room may sound it bit straining? Don’t worry, for those who are willing to spend generously, our country has no dearth of facilities. There are numerous pvt lodges – A/c and non A/c. You needn’t even go to them. They come to you the moment they see you carrying luggage and going into mutt’s lodge office. But during peak days, there is no limit for their attitudes and prices they demand for the rooms.So after you freshen up in room, its time for Breakfast and Darshan. For breakfast, there is MTR in mantralaya!! No, its not namma MTR of bengaluru. It’s Mantralaya tiffin room, which is as old as namma MTR itself (I guess). Though there will be huge crowd there(come on, its MTR after all ), I prefer to go to that hotel only, because of nostalgia (I’ve been going to that hotel ever since I was a kid. As per my dad(and also my faint memory), I used to nag him too much to buy me 3 vadas for bf. I was so particular about 3 vadas that if I don’t see exactly 3 vadas in my plate, I used to create huge ruckus it seems! Aanu, makka teeni vottambado, aanu makka teeni vottambado was my chant it seems.). But there is one catch here. If you love the meals/lunch at temples like me then, I suggest you to keep your bf as lite as possible – just a single idli or upma. The reason being, the lunch at temple starte as early as 10 am. And the moment you are done with the darshan, you can go for lunch. So these days, I’ve stopped having normal kinda bf before going for darshan in mantralaya.Coming to the Darshan part. This is the most simplest part of all. There may be serpentine q outside. But it doesnt take more than an hour max, on peak days. Other days, you will get darshan within 15mins. No pushing and shoving, no hurry burry, just pray your mind out. There is a temple outside the mutt called manchalamma temple. People say that its good if we pray in this temple before we go to mutt (which most of the times i am not able to do since the q in this temple is too longer on peak days and also slow moving. Owing to my super lite bf, I always look forward to have the lunch at the earliest once I get the Darshan of Guru Raghavendra.) On peak days, dont forget to book the return tickets. The same number of ksrtc buses and trains are available for return journey. If you dont manage to get a ticket in direct ksrtc bus then, there is another option available, which i myself experimented for the first time on my latest trip. 24Km from Mantralaya there is a town called Yemmiganur which is Taluq HQ. From this town, there are quite a few APSRTC buses going directly to Bangalore. From Mantralaya there are lot of apsrtc buses to yemmiganur - almost one in 15mins. So, you can book the ticket to bangalore from yemmiganur and reach there by bus from mantralaya atleast an hour before the scheduled departure of bus to bangalore. Its also worthwhile to mention here that APSRTC expresss buses (counterpart of karnataka sarige buses of ksrtc) are much much more comfortable than the karnataka sarige buses, with ample boot space, and less bumpy ride. So dont hesitate to book the ticket in APSRTC express bus. On non peak days, you need not book return tickets ( in bus) as almost all the buses would be running half empty. But I suggest you to look at the time table of the buses well in advance so that you can decide which one fits in your time-comfort. But the advantage of booking return ticket (in night bus, or train) is that, you can have a good nap in room after the morning darshan and lunch and can again go for a 2nd round of darshan in the evening. The mutt opens at 4 pm in the evening. IF you happen to be there at exactly 4pm, the q at manchalamma temple will also be too short and you can visit this temple before going to mutt, thereby adhering to the traditions. Also, no matter which bus or train you have booked return tickets, i advise you to either eat or take parcel from MTR. Because most of the buses will stop inside AP itself for dinner and if you are not from AP, you may not like the hotel/restaur (no intentions to hurt AP guys here, just wanted to share my opinion).If you have 2 days to spare and want to get away from the madening crowd and traffic, and take blessings from HH Raghavendra swamiji, dont think twice. Just take a printout of my blog and chalk out your plans accordingly. Anyone who wish to have more details can always email me. For the benefit of googlers to land in this page(while searching mantralaya details) I am trying for the first time, the “Tags”feature provided here. Wish you all a very happy new year. And happy journey for those who are planning to travel to Mantralayam.

Movie and reality konnection

After a long time, i enjoyed watching a Kannada movie made
with original story. In fact, last week has been lucky for me with regard to
the kind of movies i watched. All have entertained me upto my level of
expectation.
There is a reason why we indians are so much attached to
movies. Well, i'm not going to discuss about those fanatics who build temples
for their movie stars or do milk abhisheka of their stars cut outs on the day
of release. for that matter, i should not have even made a mention of them in
the above lines also.
TZP, Lagaan, Ghajini (ok ok, i dont want to be branded as
AK's fan) most recently Desi boyz, and namma Vishnuvardhana., if we consider
all these famous movies, there is some element or factor which makes us get
connected with the movie instantly. We love it. Though we dont admit it, there
is something in these movies which connects with some elment of our past, in
the back of our mind, in sub concious. Or may be conciously itself. And why we
like them?
Not long back, i was watching the people connect program
that the renowed director of kannada serials, Mr. T.N Seetaram used to conduct
at various parts of the state, when his serial Muktha was getting telecast.
Anyone who has watched the serials being made by him will first remember the
court cases in them. A lawyer by profession himself, his serials used to have
atleast two court cases in it. All of them, made to look as indigenous as
possible with the witness trials, cross examinations, defence etc., used to
have happy ending, with the director, who always used to be the lawyer for
unfortunate victims, winning the case. During one such connect programs in
Mysore, a person asked him how come there is always a happy ending for the
court cases in the serials, and always he will win. He justified it so
beautifully saying, all of us know how tedious the court cases are in our
country. many a times, the victim may never get the justice due to the delay [Our
courts love to send out the message "justice delayed is justice
denied" with frequent examples]. This has ensured that none of us have any
faith in judiciary. In the serials, contrary to the true case, the justice is
delivered to the victim at the end of the legal battle. And watching it happen,
we all feel happy. we feel happy because we see ourselves in the victim,
thereby feeling victorious ourselves. This ensures that we get connected with
the serial!! what we dont get in reality, we love to see that happen in screen.
But if we look out of movies, the other place where we can
see this kind of connection with reality was (I use the word "was" here
for a reason which i explain later) in Cricket. Rahul Dravid recently delivered
a speech at Don Bradman oration thus becoming first non-aussie to do the same. The
speech brought out the several interesting facts about cricket and history that
the two nations share. India's association with the Australia started as long
back as world war, when the two countries were british colonies, fighting for
the common enemy. Thus Sir Don Bradman easily became the favorite among Indian
cricket fans. At the peak of freedom struggle, each innings that Don bradman played against England was
like a war against them for Indians. The slaughter of Gora's bowling attack
bought joy and smile in our face.
Coming back to movies, there are several examples of
Movie-real life in southern part of our country. Tamil Nadu has seen a temple
being built for each of their movie star, at any available gap in the crowded
chennai city. This Blog will be highly incomplete if i miss to mention the
superstar of Indian cinema, the one and only Rajnikant. Shivajirao gaekwad, as
he was called before getting renamed by his debut movie director, Rajnikant
came up from grass root level without any godfather support. We indians condemn
racism when it happens on us in foreign countries like UK, US and Australia.
But back home, it is daily practise of Northis, who are comparatively fairer
than southis. This has ensured a complete dominance of fair skinned northis in
Bollywood. Thus, when a black guy came up in the industry, there was immense
support for him from people. As my colleague puts it, people saw themselves in
Rajnikant. Most of his movies are about fighting against oppression on black(ugly),
downtrodden, poor people ,which got instantly connected with the masses. he
reinforced the lost hopes in millions of poor people. The another reason for
his immense popularity was the fact that he never broke his connection with the
people, even at the peak of popularity. He made it a point to keep in touch
with common man thru several social works like building kalyana mantap etc.
There has been several examples where people indeed worshipped him like a god
in their homes, not because he was a superstar, but they were all beneficiaries
of his social service.
During 1950's and 60's, when the nation was tired after the
freedom struggle and trying to cope with new challenges, the new lover boy of Bollywood Dev Anand offered a
fresh set of romantic movies to then younger gen. People enjoyed by immersing
themselves into the romantic chartbusters churned out one after another by Dev
Saheb. But when the different social crisis like unemployment, socialism vs.
capitalism etc started to reach peak during 70's and 80's, people's taste
started to change. Enter Angry Young man - Mr. Amitabh. Labour unrest was at
peak during that period, and movies that sympathized with the labour class like
coolie were instant hits. Thus for those two or three decades, movies talking
on the National issues(against the usual trend of rom-coms) were also coming
out, which no longer is relevant now (except for one or two movies like peepli
live, no one killed jessica, etc.)
Taking my own example(no, i'm not a movie star), a couple of
days back when i was returning home by car after attending a function, there
was a minor accident. I was coming straight on my lane when a car that was
standing still on the left lane(to my left), suddenly took to its right and
brazed mine. The honest me didnt wanted to stop the car right in the middle of
road and block it. So i moved to left side, got down and checked the damaged
side. By the time i did this, the scoundrel fled the scene in his car. I
managed to note the number. But in that hullaballo, i forgot to write it down
on paper and eventually forgot also. I was clueless what next to do. I couldnt
even find him anywhere later. I was so helpless, i wanted to find that guy and
hit him black n blue (not sure if I would've really done that). I felt so
ashamed of myself. A surge of emotion, anger, helplessness started to cause so
much trouble inside. That time I realized how good it feels watching a hero
tackling a situation like this in movie. If it was a telugu movie, after the
scoundrel flees the scene and reaches his home gate (feeling how lucky he was),
he will see the hero standing at the gate waiting for him. A few punch
line-dialog from the hero and the dishum dishum starts. The scoundrel learns
his lesson.
Tailpiece : I always get comments from my friend that my
blogs ends very abruptly. Well, all i can say is that people get so engrossed
reading my blog that they hate it when it ends :)

Birth(burden)day

Birthdays have always been a difficult to manage affair for
me. Not just my birthday, my near and dear ones also comes under this ambit.
Well, what is so difficult? To put it in one simple phrase - “”Expectations management””.
Lord sri Krishna says that, Desire (synonym of Expectation)
is cause of problems (well I don’t know the exact line, atleast I don’t know to
put it in English, but I guess the summary of it will be this). But no human
can totally live like a saint. And as I realized, life teaches us a lot of
things, changing us over every day, just like how a sculptor shapes the statue
he works on. Only difference being the sculptor of the real beings is the
almighty.
Well, coming back to my topic of birthday. This birthday was
kinda eye opener for me. “Don’t make anything special ma, lets just bring the
ready made jamun tin from nandini outlet and have it……..” “Restaurant?????? No
pls….. Mom, y waste money on things like this which comes every year????
Anyways, we go to restaur irrespective of whether there is any spl occasion or
not, so y again specifically tomorrow on my bday…. Lets not……” “Gift?? Ummmmm…
well, I Don’t want anything as such, just got a new mobile and laptop for
myself, there is nothing specific I need as of now… so let it b… I don’t want
anything…. “
And then 2 days later my bday came.
“Just chapathi for bf??? Err ok””ma any gift for me????
Well, yeah was just like that asking, not serious….. “
Evening - “are we
going out for dinner??? Oh you have already cooked?? Phovu? Ummm… yeah I myself
asked not to go out to any restaur, but felt like asking, never bother, lets
have phovu only“ (the last two phrases came out without any sound)
The saint inside me who gave out weighty declarations just
the two days before, had died and was replaced by the person, whose character
was dead contrast to what Lord Krishna preached. He made it sure that whatever
decision I had taken two days before, come to haunt me on the D day. It was very painful to accept the reality. I
learnt how easy it is to say something but, follow the same in practical.
Well that was about my birthday. Now coming to my near and
dear ones. Well, there is nothing as such to say what is difficult here. But I
strongly like the expression on the face of the person when I call him/her up
on the D day and wish. People become really emotional and senti when they
realize that their best buddy not only remembered the spl day, but even took
time out of the busy day to cal and wish as well. At the same time, it is too
painful for me when I forget the day and wish them the belated bday wishes.
Asking sorry wont do any help. So I always abstain from using sorry if at all
if I happen to wish belated bday.
Good Night J

Evil vs good

It has always been my practice to write blog when my mind is
flooding with thoughts and interpretations of certain things. But I’m going against
the trend today since, I don’t have anything particular in mind, nor I’m
feeling like writing anything in particular. It’s just that I didn’t wanted to
finish the day in usual manner as I do always. Let me write up something, said
my mind. Well, that makes the saying “Change
is only constant” stronger now.
People are up against FDI in retail market. There are protests
everywhere in the country lead by several “Leaders” who go unnoticed other
days. Bal thackery, the self-proclaimed protector of Marathi
Manoos, growled in his party’s mouth piece “samna”, saying he would kick
the new jnanapith awardee of Kannada- Mr. Kambar for his references on Belgaum.
Vinod Kambli (the ex-indian cricketer, if any of you have forgotten already)
suddenly remembered that he was part of 96’ world cup match. It would have been
good if his memory worked only till that point. But unfortunately (for rest of
team india players), some cells overworked in his brain to remind him that it
may have been fixed.
All this happening around me, used to invoke genuine
questions in mind. Like why this protest? Why Mr. Thackery said like that….e
tc. I was honest to such a extent that I used to read the whole content of such
news headlines in newspapers. But over a period of time, Ëxperience – the teacher,
is teaching me “lessons of life”. I don’t want to discuss anything in detail
here, since the teacher inside each of us would have explained all these in a
unique way. But to put it in a simple way, all this is jus part of the system
where everything is based on greed & need. We put different masks to others
need projecting it as greed, and honest mask to our own need. For media to
survive, they have to be top on TRP charts. For Political parties to survive,
they should not fade out of Public memory. For opposition party to come back to
power in next elections, they should be carrying out protests against Govt
policies, good or bad. It is all part of system. Everything happens for its own
survival and need. The perception differs.
Why we are part of such a system where everything seems to
be bad. Everyone is chasing his own need. Does that mean everyone is greedy? Being
greedy is evil? Here I’m. I started with blank mind, and I’ve a big philosophical
question hauting me now.
Mr. Amish did a wonderful job of explaining evil in his Shiva
Trilogy book. As per my understanding, he tries to say that the universe is
always balanced with evil and good. What does a person do to be a evil? Just
because he murdered/ looted some one cannot be judging point. What made him to
do that? He has dropped into a mind-set which lets him believe that its okay to
loot someone for his own survival. Punishing him may seem to be possible way of
giving justice to victim. But what needs to be done is to make such person
detach from such evil thinking. Though it is impossible to do so practically,
it does help you to understand that a person should not be seen as evil, it’s
the evil principles to which he his attached, which has to be seen as real
evil. Think this way, and I’m sure you will be more calm in dealing with such
people in your daily life. After all, he has got attached to some evil
thinking, lets help him overcome that – think this way.
Gaining publicity seems to be ultimate motive of people I illustrated
above. I’m unable to see anything evil in that. Since it is very much part of
their profession. Everyone cannot be expected to work in a 9-6 job, get paid,
shut- the- mouth- and –lead- your- life kind of life. But if it starts causing
problem to aam-admi by halting traffic, disrupting basic services etc., then we
need to do something. Lets help them realise their attachment to evil thinking
that disrupting public life wont do any good to either him or anyone. I’m sure
many people can come with many more solutions for this on similar lines.
Well, that is it. My mind has done a wonderful job today by
unloading something which did not exist inside it. Was it evil???? LOL…. Time to
sleep.

Monsoonomics

How nice it feels when it showers at evening after a hot day. Of course it depends on which side you are when it rains, inside your home or rushing back to home from office. But nevertheless it is a nice feeling to smell the mud when the rain drops fall on ground. I’m sure that, given a chance many of us would feel the urge to sing and dance to some song, jump and splash the water on the small pools that gets created when it is raining.

But today when it was raining, I was travelling in company bus back to my home. My mind sailed through all the different thoughts about monsoon. I couldn’t help but to think about the people for whom the rains are very important aspect in their life. Their livelihood depends on the monsoon. Yes, I am talking about the Farmers. If we are struck in rain at the time of going to nearest supermarket to buy groceries or vegetables, we may curse our bad luck or even the rain itself for coming at such ‘bad time’. But the very same Rain is essential for producing the goods which we buy from there.

Over the last decade (ever since our country welcomed the globalization) there has been increasing trend in the growth of economy. The GDP has always reached the target of financial planners. But have we done enough for the improving the life of farmers who strive hard in any climatic conditions to produce the food for us? Politicians champion the farmer’s movement till they win elections and then the same people will exploit these farmers by inhumane and unlawful land acquisitions. Movie makers who have tried to highlight the plight of farmers in their movies have seen the movies running in near-empty theaters as people are more interested in new expletives and cuss words teaching movies.

While there are plenty of challenges facing the farmers today, almost all of them could be linked to either literacy or financial independence. Getting subsidized fertilizers and seeds, compensation on land given up for SEZ’s and other projects, support price for the crops etc, depend on the education level and access. Access is a broad concept. Reducing the number of middlemen between the farmer and the market solves many a problem for the poor exploited farmer. This is nothing but the access to fair market. Likewise the access to financial source is also very crucial. A farmer cannot be expected to handle everything that is required to get his produce to market directly (precisely the reason for which he is still dependent on the ever-exploiting middlemen). Forget about the marketing the produce, getting an agricultural loan from bank itself is herculean task for an average farmer. This in spite of the fact that RBI mandate that all public sector banks should give 40% of their total loans to priority sector which include the Agriculture.

It’s very high time that the financial inclusion exercise by RBI meets the desired target. A financial inclusion is a program launched by RBI to help every person in country to at least have a basic saving account with him (and gradually the access to credit facility – at least the micro finance). The advantage of this could be plenty. The government gives the subsidy on fertilizers to the manufacturer (expecting him to pass on the benefit to farmers by lowering the M.R.P) instead of the farmer himself oblivious of the fact that it leads to illegal selling of fertilizers in open market. Same goes with the domestic LPG, diesel etc. But if the financial inclusion is achieved, and the other innovative efforts like the AADHAR (Unique ID for every citizen) these illegal rackets can be curbed or minimized(I abstain from using “stopped” word keeping in mind the IQ power of the mafia people in our country). The savings account of the farmer can be linked with his UID and the government can transfer the subsidy amount to his account directly (with the help of local panchayats and SHG). Though the method is not foolproof, it is effective in long run.

The Anna hazare’s fast proved one important point if nothing else – the youth are not oblivious to the problems plaguing the country. They can be mobilized for social cause provided the leader is creditworthy. Jaago re movement, janagraha NGO etc add to the list of proof. Whatever be the problem, if the govt shows the commitment to work towards it, the citizens will welcome such move with open arms. If there are any loopholes in any plans like the one discussed above, NGO’s and other youth groups are more than happy to help. We’ve the right mind and right energy, what is required now is a leader who can show the right direction to them. I hope the coming monsoons in our country are welcomed by more and more farmers with smiling faces rather than those with frustration and disgust in their face.