Uff! The boys are at it again. Burning the midnight lamp, unmindful of skyrocketing global oil prices, sticking brown paper all over. Painting me pink and green...whatever! Painting Chidambaram as Christopher Columbus because Rip Van Winkle finally woke up in the US of A to discover the The World (indeed) Is Flat. Could have gone to town with Chris Reeves as well. Wotsay Superman?
Welcome to yet another blockbuster on The Budget.
So, whatsit gonna be like, in case you’re still eager. No, I am not quite talking about the Budget, who cares about it anyway; I am talking of ET’s Budget edition. And the one from our sissy paper, The Times. Last year, they jabbed a Swiss knife through the works; if you ask me, this year, it could well be a SPADE. There’s a lot of digging going around, you see, coz FM’s at Work. And they are promising the works all over...prime minister’s employment scheme, mid-day lunch and all those extra throwaways. Digging, digging, digging.... And our boys are digging as well, right into the night, digging a helluvalot figures to figure out a tax on this, and a tax on that, an expense on this account, and an expense on that... all to beat the FM at his game. If you dig through the past month’s pile of ET, you’d have got the Budget anyway. Right?
Which brings me to the point, why are we so obsessed with the FM robbing Peter to pay Paul, when the point about economic freedom is to free our minds from economics...and, therefore, free our souls from fear, from greed, from panic, from hope?
Hope? Now look at the Budget once more. It’s one hopeless cycle of tax and spend. Some 35million of us paying out of our hard-earned incomes to lift a billion others out of a morass, and 7 million stock market investors applauding from the fringes because they have no other choice.
Every year, with unfailing regularity, Mr Chidambaram raises taxes so that he can essentially get civil servants their wages and pay interest on government loans. He also bills you and me for guns and missiles when the least we can do with is a war. In fact, whatever the Budget does each year, which it should do because it needs to do so, has little to do with you and me who add up to only 7 million car owners and 70 million cellphone users in this country. Which is why it also has little to do with The Economic Times.
Come, look again, the Budget is more about spending on agriculture and rural uplift by taxing industry’s profits, when for you and ET, it’s industry that matters. The Budget is all about public spending, when for you and ET, private enterprise is crucial. The Budget is all about the unorganised sector, when for you and ET, the organised sector makes sense. The Budget is all about securing commodities, when for you and ET, brands are more important. The Budget is all about middle class angst, when for you and ET, celebrating, not taxing, the success of men who matter counts for more. The Budget is all about reaching out to the unquoted, when for you and ET, it’s the quotes that matter the most. So, if you look at it the way I do, ET is all about celebrating your success, while FM’s at Work to give us the heebie-jeebies and all. As for the poor, they neither read The Economic Times, nor does the Budget make sense to them.
Of course, you could always say the Budget is all about the rich versus poor — to make the poor rich, and the rich poor. But if you look at it carefully, if every Indian and every Chinese on the planet were to achieve the great American quality of life, you can’t even imagine the consequences of consumption on the Earth’s limited resources. It makes no sense to impose artificial constructs on tribals in the name of development when, for centuries, they have actually been at peace with their being. Instead, if you detach yourself from material stink around, the way I do, the rich and poor would all appear the same; it’s a state of mind from where you belong. If you find this hard to believe, go, take a flight — as you touch down on Mumbai airport, from a distance in the sky, the slums and penthouses that make for the city appear one and the same.
Which is why, we don’t spare a thought for poor rich guy Bill Gates, who spends his day making billions, and night sleepless in Seattle. What’s the point in making the poor rich if he’s going to spend the best years of his life making money, and the rest, figuring out how to give it away.
I’ve had too much of this paint job all these years. Now, it’s time I took a break. How nice it would be if the Band of Boys at ET were to declare February 28 a casual holiday. And return the day after to celebrate a ‘private’ moment across my forehead... or wherever!
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