Line of Sight

It was a photo-op that photo journalists dream of. This was the thought in my mind as I saw the President staring at a derriere of a girl whose face we could not see. During the school days a friend and I had the dream of becoming photo journalists with National Geographic as the dream job just because we were under the innocent impression of the organization not having any budget for the camera equipment. While I had such innocent thoughts in my head, my wife thought otherwise. ‘You men are all alike. With such important event of the G8 meeting, only a man will let his mind wander.’ I smiled and reminded her that for a President, all work is important.

What intrigued me was the expression on the face of the French President as if he wanted to say ‘I pity your country where such visions may be rare. In nous (our) France we have such quality of derriere (a French word already used in English) as pure average’. That is what friends are for I guess. With friends like these, who needs enemies! Instead of preventing him from getting embarrassed, Monsignor stood back and joined us. ‘I am sure you guys in the office also do this all the time’ my wife broke my line of thought. ‘In the dusty world of an auditor, I can assure you that the guy who brings us tea is the only sight for sore eyes’ I assured her.

I mused to recall when was it that the last time I made such a glance and to tell the truth, I could not remember purely due to advanced age and loss of memory. But I have the nasty habit of staring into space when in deep thought. Though I have been careful where I stare, I have had some close calls when I may be staring at a female colleague or any part of her anatomy which may not be registering in my brain or even on my retina. However, the stared person would have no inkling of what is registering on my retina and may form a purely sexist opinion of what all men are. Frankly speaking, I think the President was very such victim of line of sight because the line of sight is not always the line of interest. I have heard people to search for inspiration at the unlikeliest of places. Not everyone is a saint to deserve inspiration under a Banyan tree. One programmer told me he found solutions while smoking a cigarette while another found benefit in a large cup of coffee which took 20 minutes to drink. One confided me that for solutions he normally went to the toilet.

‘Let us not crucify anyone by trial of press’ I chided my wife with the typical legal line. ‘A man is innocent until proven guilty. Let us see the other angle….. sorry view point …. Oops reason why his head may have turned in that angle.’ That sent my wife into raptures of laughter. I continued my defense for the President. ‘He was looking at a point behind the target’s body and not on her body.’ ‘Why would he do that?’ asked my wife immediately. Here is where I wished my brain were a computer which I could replace with a new one every six months for a faster clock speed. To answer her I needed a quadruple processor not the current dual processor. ‘He was looking at the wake of her walk which resembled the state of the world economy.’ The immediate answer froze her to the point of belief. ‘Huh’ Now I had the confusion advantage which lasted for precisely 5 seconds because pat came the retort, ‘what good will that do? Convince me scientifically.’

I racked my brain and remembered a colleague during my early days of employment. ‘Residual science’ I announced as if any fool would understand. From her expression I knew that I had to explain. ‘This is one statistical method of analyzing the data left over after processing data under any known process. The ‘residual’ data is like the ‘wake’ of a ship. From the wake we can determine the direction of the ship and its size even.’ Hands on hips she asked, ‘When a girl walks, where is the wake?’ ‘In the air’ pat came my reply. ‘Who can see it?’ she demanded. ‘Only men can see…. silly’ I closed the issue.

Precious Duty

It was just a routine budget declaration where the twist of the language is often practiced to give the impression that we are taxed less while a hole is nicely drilled into our wallets. The aspect of customs duty increase on Gold did not attract my attention until others pushed my head in that direction. ‘I should have got married before the budget’ my daughter cried one day. ‘Huh?’ I never knew she was in such a hurry. ‘Any boy I know?’ I asked fearfully about the affair that parents are always last to know. I braced for the worst as she said, ‘No-one special. I just wanted to get married so that you would not have to increase your marriage budget for me in the department of ornaments.’ Stunned with the unexpected answer, it took longer to comprehend her concern for her Daddy’s financial situation. ‘Full 100% rise in customs duty will raise the rate of 10 grams by around Rs. 200 according to the papers’ she educated me. I took her remark lightly and said, ‘As I am likely to shed a tear as I hand you over to your husband, I will shed another for the cost of your ornaments. So don’t change your whole life for some price of gold and end up with the wrong man in the hurry.’ A father’s lecture finally entered the conversation with a sprinkling of humour.

‘How come we have fish for the second time in the week?’ I asked my wife. Because of the recession, we had reduced the frequency of our non-veg menu days in the house. ‘The fisherwoman said the cost of her fish will reduce as her family boat has got some other side business.’ I wondered what side business a fishing boat can have in the course of fishing. My puzzlement must have reflected on my face as she dug her elbows in me and whispered to ensure our children did not over hear, ‘Gold smuggling has started again.’ I almost smacked my head in an attempt to clear the rust of honesty that even stopped me from realizing such obvious. Now I was happy that there is at least some supplier who passes on the benefit of lowering of cost and does not revel in his super profits at the expense of exploited consumers like me. My mind wandered like the documentary of the history channel to the fifties and sixties when gold smuggling in India was rampant. Everybody in the costal industry made tax-free money and built bungalows with scores of rooms that would put a hotel to shame. When that stopped due to parity of prices (lowering of customs duty) the poor guys boats had to be filled with the voluminous washing machines and televisions. Not only were they difficult to carry on landing but they also did not make sufficient margin per cubic centimeter as gold bars did earlier. I can imagine these people to rejoice the advent of their ‘golden’ period.

On the way to the office, I bumped into my neighbor who was currently struggling in his artificial jewellery manufacturing business. He did not have his usual grumpy face but possessed a carefree demeanor to the extent that I concluded he must have lost his mental stability due to work stress. ‘What is the good news bhai?’ I kept myself normal. ‘Did you not hear, the BGL line is raised so my market had widened!’ I knew BPL stood for below poverty line but BGL foxed me. He explained, ‘BGL means Below Gold Line means those people who cannot afford real gold. So these people are my market. By raising the duty…’ I raised my hand, ‘I know the rest. Congratulations.’ I wished him. Now I could see the future clearly that the handful car parking for guests in our building will be encroached upon by his cars purchased out of the super profits.
I was now beginning to see an antithesis of how increase in duty or tax actually creates wealth for the people in addition to the Government. I shook my head. All the rust in my head was making me think the scary logic that tax was good for the people and the more they paid, the more they earned. So is high taxes the ultimate win-win situation? That surely must have been the thought of the Finance minister when in the early seventies the marginal rate of income tax was a whooping 98%. Why did we not see the logic then? Does liberlisation create such a great difference? While people around me were celebrating the impact of increase in Gold price due to Customs Duty, I grew depressed as none of the drops of fountain of possible benefits would ever fall on me.

My company economist played the role of a counselor as he heard my story over a cuppa. He smiled as if I overlooked an obvious advantage. ‘You forgot the savings you will have due to price reduction of your fish’ he reminded me. I was one up on him. ‘You always told me to look at the net effect as you look as the net profit of our company. So, I calculated the excess money I will have to shell out for my daughter’s wedding jewellery and to compensate that by the savings in fish, it will take 145 years as per my calculation.’ His face fell as he searched for some argument in his mind to counter mine. Then as an instant flash he blurted, ‘You will play the critical role of catalyst of the economy. All the money you will be spending will circulate in the economy and that is what Lord Keynes had advocated.’ Wow now I felt like superman on whose shoulder’s rested future of world economy. I could visualize popular news channels like BBC, CNN, Times Now, Headlines Today etc. all clamoring to ask me how I saved the world. But in a flash I realized that my economist friend who was now heading for the elevators had pulled a real fast one on me.

Slippery Mode

‘Sir, the prices have risen last week. You are calculating on the old rates’ the petrol pump attendant said returning my bundle of cash. In one sentence he turned me into Rip Van Winkle who had slept for 20 years. I had to challenge this otherwise polite attendant. ‘I watched the international news channel and I clearly heard the oil prices to fall to an eight month low and if you feel that the news has not reached India, let me assure you that at least the financial papers carried the news’. He smiled as if he was about to teach complicated table manners to a village bumpkin. ‘You may not be aware that the prices in India have nothing to do with the international prices’ he replied. That sent me into peals of laughter until I had tears rolling down my cheek. I finally managed to gasp out to him, ‘how can cost of purchase not be linked to sale price? Have you no commerce sense?’ He still had the smug look of a know all teacher as he lectured me, ‘in India, the Ministry of Petroleum sets the price and all oil distributing companies have to follow’. Now my tears created by laughter rolled down in sadness at the socialistic market intervention.

‘You must appreciate that the Ministers at the Centre are busy usually domiciled in other states. By the time they reach their office in Delhi, the market has changed. So, though any price rise can be dictated over phone from as far as Mumbai, they normally take their time for price reduction’ the attendant fed me realism. As I counted the additional bundle, I told him, ‘any Management student knows that efficiency is not a one way street. If they are efficient to react to price rise, the same system should react with equal speed to reduce prices.’ ‘Unless they want to offer the opposition a chance to agitate and get some mileage. And later, the governing party gets a better mileage by the publicity and the reduction in the price they should have done half a year earlier’ the attendant gave me his parting shot. As I eased the car out off the petrol station, I realized that by postponing the sale price reduction for such a long time, the processing company in India which has four major ones, is raking in the profits of a massive scale. All they have to do is sit back and hope the Minister sits back and relaxes too.

With all this talk of liberalisation of the 90’s, this aspect of social interventions seems to have been forgotten. Since the same ministry also controls the cooking gas prices, you and I are not critical. It is only a matter of time that this sector will also see liberalisation and I shall dream for that day. Just like the airlines industry in India went from a 2 biscuit distribution mode of air lifting to a plush 5 star comfort with ultimate dining and entertainment of even live Television signals, I wondered what the scene will be of this industry if one of the Kings of Liberalisation ventured into a competitive mode. Surely, the prices would change perhaps even intra day! I would profit from the timing of my filling the tank and they would have even the ‘happy hour’ prices between midnight and 4 a.m. to attract people to their petrol pumps. Now how would the gas delivery system change? I did not have to think much as the sweaty greasy delivery man would give way to the excess personnel of the cabin crew laid off during the recession and for a change, the men folk in every household would even take a holiday from work to ensure the cylinder is delivered in the middle class household. They would even print a calendar of their best delivery personnel which would be a collector’s item every year.

When I reached the workplace, I attacked my work with gusto but the absence of the bundle of cash in my pocket gave me a nagging feeling. Though I ticked off the expense vouchers already vetted by my junior my mind was in the petrol tank of my car. Even with the most energy efficient car in India, I was worried. Just then the Marketing Director’s bill caught my eye. Lunches and Dinners with prospective clients are a sin-qua-non for this department so, the liquor bill was no surprise. What was a surprise was the calculation that went in my head. The bill mentioned the rate for Beer and my mental calculator started ticking. Beer was actually cheaper than Petrol! All we have to do is adjust something somewhere (I am auto-mechanically challenged) and voila! We have an alternative to fuel price controlled by some Ministry. I am aware that this would trigger protests from tipplers who would later end up as Beer station attendants dutifully testing or tasting the sample every hour to make sure the customers get pure stuff. With beer as a fuel alternative (or alcohol) the system of checking intoxication of the driver for DUI (Driving under influence) would have to change as each driver would have the plea that the fumes of his/her gas tank influenced the old meter and the reading had nothing to do with what the driver of the vehicle had ingested. I certainly hope the liquor barons wake up to this fact and even sponsor the research for engines to run on beer.

As I passed the petrol station on the way back, I stopped there to hand him a large piece of paper I had printed. It was something I had found on the internet. I told the attendant to display it on the window as it represented the correct price whatever it may be.