Boiling kitchen

By Manish Anand

A Delhi minister's wife recently picked up fight with her servant. The minister watched the spectacle with all amusement. The wife when given the monthly ration bill by the servant found out the previous month's bill and compared and lost her temper. The bill had just doubled up.

The tigress at home just could not understand the doubling up of the bill, and put all the blames on the servant with all the expletives challenging his honesty. Why the bill shot twice of the previous month's, the wife kept repeating.

The poor servant had hard time explaining the price rise with prices of vegetables and pulses simply touching the sky.

The minister at last intervened and explained the market economics. The servant was at no fault. Blame it on thickening of middle class and spurt in the export without matching supply in the market. Simple!

Hey, is it that simple?

Not at all as the India is a welfare state and the electorate choose a government to take care of their concerns and protect them from all market fluctuations. So, why the government is not intervening?

That too is simple as the governments post new economic era do not want to interfere in the dynamics of the market. The market would take care of all ups and downs itself, is the mantra of the government.

But what about the poor and the lower middle class? They can not bear the market abandoning them to the curse of the "want". They have to feed their children and have to ensure the minimum level of nutrition. What should they do as their income did not rise as the prices of their basic necessities leaped?

Very simple; just wait for the election and throw away the government which did not protect your interests!

That of course will not solve the problem except for satiating the need to express the collective mass anger. More efforts will be needed and that would be when people in real terms start governing themselves. Probably, solutions as put forward by the World Social Forum may be looked into.

It's time people start strengthening their communities and begin developing a self-sufficient community. Grow most of the basic necessities that you require and become immune to the market dynamics as the government always listen to the poor only when they need votes, which unfortunately is not that too frequent.

But what about those who live in big cities? They can not grow their needs themselves as they do not have land.

Are they helpless? Probably yes!

GDP at 9.2 per cent–reason for euphoria?

By Manish Anand

Headlines beamed this week that India’s GDP (Gross Domestic Product) has been pegged at 9.2 per cent, which called for celebrations by the newspapers. Is it really so euphoric? A doctored way of development has been the GDP linked growth, which India remains obsessed with.

GDP is the aggregate of a nation’s produces, that is, all the services and goods originating from the nation and selling domestic or internationally.

Post new economic policy, the economic policy makers have been dreaming to touch a 10 per cent GDP growth on a sustained basis, which in their view would lift the lower strata of the society by the spin-off effect. We have been very near that dream, but that spin-off has not had the intended effect so far.

The spin-offs have been in the form of more millionaires and billionaires with few of the giant Indian companies buying out big ticket companies abroad, and yes thickening of the middle class with more people sneaking into this because of the creation of more and more jobs in the services sector, which account for more than 50 per cent of GDP, which again has always been taken as a cause of concern.

Simple economics says that a country of large population like Indian and China should be stronger on the manufacturing sector, which alone has the potential to create huge employment along with unleashing innumerable entrepreneurial potential in the nation.

India just missed the bus of being the manufacturing base of the world. The reasons are aplenty.

With more than 30 per cent of the people always at the threat of starvation, being below the poverty line, which is nothing but statistical maneuvering of the pampered babus, there is reason to question the GDP driven growth of the country.

With millions of people being shelter less despite shelter being the fundamental right of the citizen as mandated by the Constitution, there is reason to ask why the babus in the cool confines of the Lutyens’ Delhi do not step into the interiors of the country to gauge the effect of their policies.

With the law and order along with judiciary still functioning in the British mould it becomes necessary to ask if the policy makers are not single mindedly focused on GDP growth rate then to deliver services as promised in the Constitution in an undiluted manner.

With thousands of children going missing each year in this country, which takes pride in calling itself a welfare state, it becomes important whether the government really cares for the people or not or is it too busy to raise a toast for the Tatas and the Mittals.

Why have not we developed happiness index or well being index so far to really gauge the impact of the policies in the real terms? The suicides of farmers along with a whole lot of farmers not able to rid themselves of the debt trap are shame that the policy makers must take on them.

Why does it take Sonia Gandhi to dash off a letter, asking to look into the issues of FDI in retail sector, which can potentially make crores of people jobless and leave people at the mercy of the oligarchs, for the government to really start looking into the issue?

Do the people need Sonia Gandhi as an ambassador within their own country?

Thinking through

by Manish Anand

Faced with a dull face and little to offer brain overhead, the best escape is to look out of the window. This is a routine at the new secretariat, seat of power of the Delhi government, which is full of mundane and unexciting people.

Its architect must be thanked for developing an artificial pond on the northern side, which the migratory birds have really liked to their zest. The pond looks like islands of black and white dots, creating waves and floating on them. The black dot is a small bird and the white one is like a duck.

Bonding one must learn from the black birds (I apologise for not knowing its correct name) as hundreds of them have coupled with no distraction coming their ways despite innumerable of them being there. A couple is either making a circle continuously or chasing the partner with watery waves created by their tiny wings giving them a world of their own.

Envious attachment one can easily call with the thought waves recalling the saddened voice of a friend sharing the breaking off with his could have been life partner. A friend in Indian Revenue Services had found his soul mate with one of his batch-mate two years ago and had later firmed up their relations with resolve to get married despite immense cultural and linguistic divide. Their love ended in tatters as the girl got through into IAS with posting thousands of miles away from him making marriage impractical, and hence the breaking off.

Though the black birds are very small in size, they are not at all in awe with their bigger counterparts and have divided the pond in equal sizes. No intrusion and no violation of territorial sanctity for them with remarkable discipline one could spot in them. In contrast to them is this place full of people ready to chop off each other to move over. Humans have so little to trust each other with eyes speaking out their minds so clearly these days.

One could easily fall in love with the duck like white bird, which could be taken as the best bather in the world with even the princess nowhere near them in their art of bathing. Ruffling wings after nose diving on and on, the question just crossed the mind if it would take a break and just dry out like some of them doing so, who must have taken their ablutions earlier. Sparkling white with purity shining all the way, they could give a run for money to all the brand ambassadors of the beauty clinic products on any day.

Ah, they are the migratory stuff who know no distance and barrier and can fly off to their choicest destinations. Life in all zest these birds are really blessed with just a wicked man waiting somewhere to trap them and end their celebration of life.

30s harking back 20s

by Manish Anand

Invited by a friend, who like me is into early 30s, at a bar in afternoon where he had been taking drink all alone, I had reasons to brood on our age induced behavioral changes. Speaking less and taking broad views on issues around us, I thought we were not at all the “rocking youth” that we used to be when we were in our 20s.

We are now grown ups and the talks that used to thrill us in our yesteryears sound frivolous and boring ways to kill the abundant time that we had.

Soon, we were joined by a group of five, who were early into 20s or were they teenagers. Rocking band of new generation youth, must say, who give a damn to most of the things in life nowadays. A solitary girl among them ordered beer and rest settled for hard drinks, puffing cigarettes hard.

Though we in our 20s hardly ever talked with girls given the society that we grew in, it was amusing to hear these kids discussing body parts of their female friends with all the gusto with a girl in their group taking great joy at vivacious descriptions.

As they made most of the noise, we turned towards them many a time. We also looked into them with our perspectives. My friend quipped if this is the new generation what would be our kids when they grow up. Hypothesizing, as most of the “grown ups” do, we also wondered if these rocking band ever thought of being first be able to buy a drink by their earned money before stepping into a bar.

It’s a different matter that the liquor law in Delhi prohibits youth below the age of 25 being served liquor. The laws in Delhi are just for booting them!

Recently, I came across an Orkut group called “Need No Advice” with its punch line: “We are grown ups. And even if we aren't, we are better off without advice. And hey we dont give a f*** abt wat you think.. WE ARE THE KINGS OF OUR OWN WORLD..”

Frightening or bewildering!

Just wonder if anyone had ever lived a life without advice in one way or the other.

Are the 20s’ folks living a pseudo life with a world full of misplaced perception created around them by their parents for reasons best known to them? A friend some years ago was left gasping when his student gave the definition of a poor. “A poor is one who drives Maruti 800 car and lives in a DDA flat,” she had said.

I must say that I have no remorse at all being into early 30s and growing up when Indian socio-polity and economy were in tumult, thus educating our generation socially and intellectually.