Demonetization – Woes & Joys -- Not A Cost Benefit Analyses

  Lots of water has gushed under the bridges & over the causeways of all the holy & other rivers in the last several days after the cloud burst on 500s & 1000s. Firstly, the ‘Recommendations’ :

·       When the rough times are on – many agitate, the wise sit back, watch & relax. Good times must follow.

·       Don’t cultivate that hobby of amassing 2000s (you never know?!) – unless you find queuing up for money exchange great social fun.

·       Get PayTm, PayZapp, UPI, Chillr, On-the-Go (what the hell are they?) – check out from the nearest tea vendor how to download & use.

·       Activate some of your many Debit Cards, Credit Cards – apart from status symbols, they are useful for clean shopping.

·       Get your employees to open bank accounts & pay them by cheque/net transfer- ( I did it long before the cloud burst-note how their self esteem goes up with a cheque in their hands with their very own name on it).

·       It’s painful, but start paying all your taxes.

·       Pass on the dirty job to your Bank of keeping a tab & clearing your monthly electricity bills, water bills, telephone bills, gas bills. A by-product: save money on the usual late payment penalties.

  We are done with recommendations for the time being – more will come as indeed it is a dynamic process – every day is a developing situation. Please display ‘flexibility of mind’ - & by the way, this is a valued principle of war that has won many a battle. Call it an ‘open mind’ if you wish. And now for the body of this Blog.

  You know how a see-saw works in a children’s park or do you know how a pendulum works – that’s how my mind has been working overtime while reading absolutely convincing cost benefit analyses by well known as also by newly emerged economic luminaries of the country. I’m for demonetization now…read another piece by one more economic genius & I’m against this ‘drastic step’…no, I’m for it now…finally I decide to give up with our great economists with an unfulfilled wish that they all be put in a slushy Bear Pit & let them have it out.

  Meanwhile, like a disciplined soldier, I find that the final orders are out & time for ‘fruitful’ discussion is over. Might as well get things moving, it’s inevitable, lie back & enjoy – yes, the vast majority of our country folk are already enjoying the discomfiture of those who they gleefully imagine would be stranded with their 500s & 1000s. Correctly or incorrectly, they are sure that whoever vociferously demonstrates has also no clue or opportunity to skillfully change their vast treasures from Black to White.

  Talking of innovative ways of doing the mass Black to White – well it is a separate study by itself & many a thesis will be attempted in times to come. Sending surrogates to four different banks with four different ID proofs is kid stuff! Closing down the factory unit for a few days & sending junior employees each with 2.5 lakhs to deposit in their respective Jan Dhan accounts is schoolboy level creativity. Making a beeline to the numerous jewelers with wads of 500s/1000s is club level novelty. Well, the Big Boys make only mild noises of protest & always involve the Farmer. What is doing the silent rounds is that in a State or two (or more?) the “adtiyas” (wholesale grain merchants in mandis) have been handed over gunny-bags of notes for doing the needful. The adtiyas in turn have rounded up their hundreds of dependent farmers & paid them for the next few future crops in advance (never mind any failure of the monsoon) – it is perfectly legal to do that & the farmer has the necessary back-dated pink slip while he deposits the notes in the bank. In due course when the harvests come in, the adtiya sells, makes the money, does a fair share distribution of the white stuff – everybody is happy. But I sincerely hope & wish that there is a catch to it. More amazing stories are trickling in…I’m deferring their description for the time being to avoid a panic situation.

  Much of the year & especially the last couple of weeks, I stayed rather close to the farmers. Of course every region is different. The mood is of jubilation. Where is the lack of dough to get seeds, seedlings, fertilizers? Farmers don’t put all their money of the previous crop in fixed deposits – they keep enough cash to prepare for the next. It brings mirth to them that the wise urbanites are so naively concerned about them.

  One aspect that has escaped our inveterate experts & I would like to draw their kind attention to it. The unheard of application of the ‘theory & practice of Queues’ in our Nation has come to light across every corner & crevice in one single stroke. People have assessed for themselves various trade-offs of joining a line – forego favorite period of sleep, rise early & stand at the head hours before the office opens; have a nice sleep, pick up a bottle of water, put on a forced smile & join the trickling stream at the tail; any time of the day go along with your regular gang, queue up together & spend a memorable time till you exchange your 1000…I hope, wish & pray the concept of queuing, learnt with so much of sweat, sunburns & cramps gets profitably disseminated to other relevant areas.

Tailpiece – there is much more to it but I must conclude that if the see-saws or pendulums are in action with you, take the advice of a very cerebral friend of mine who very kindly sent to me: Mr Narayana Murthy, Mr Bill Gates, World Bank, IMF are for demonetization; Ms Mamta Banerjee, Mr Kejriwal, Mr Mulayam Singh are against it. Does that make it easier or yet harder for you to decide!? Or are you looking forward to the evasive debate in parliament from where some new twinkling pearls of wisdom will surface?