The colour of money.

In a country that is obsessed with anything that is fair, fair as in appearance and not so obsessed with anything that is fair, fair as in reasonable, the newfound love for something black perplexed me, but at the same time encouraged me to delve deep into my understanding of the colour of money. Yes, the pursuit of black money hoarded across the shores was brought to light accompanied by huge media frenzy and political brouhaha over the last couple of weeks. Political parties had promised to bring this back as part of their election manifestos. One of the media houses went to the extent of claiming that they had beaten the rest by a clean 2 hours in being the first to track, expose and reveal the ‘black’ money hoarders. It was one of those rare moments when something that was black was in the limelight in India.

My understanding of economics was slightly skewed as a child, I always thought the rich had white money, the poor had black money and the middle class had brown money. Now, that was some 'classification of my understanding of the monetary policies around me. The rich always flaunted nice, crisp and fresh notes / wads of currency that were thick enough and could be held together with a rubber band and were stored in suitcases and safes. The poor had crumpled, soiled, hand me down currency where even the promissory clause ‘I promise to pay the bearer the sum of rupees…’ had vanished and was often secured in their sweaty palms. The middle class as the name suggests found itself in the middle of things receiving white money from the rich in lesser thickness and stored it in wallets or shirt pockets which turned grey as they were holding on to it far too long before changing it and then handing over the left overs in a darker shade of grey to the poor which ultimately turned black in their possession. I thought this was in line with social order of things I was taught to believe as a child.

Well, growing up, I was even more confused as I started to read that black money was stored in the pristine white snow clad regions of Switzerland. What an irony I thought, a country draped in white hosted black money. This, I call the yin and yang of Indian economy. I realized that darker the shade of black the money had, the more colorful use it was put to, for example the colorful song and dance sequences of Bollywood shot in scenic locales of Swiss Alps or the busy Times Square was claimed to be funded by black money. The colorfully lit skylines that sprang up in most metropolitan cities were supposedly funded by black money. Certain self-gratifying activities engaged in red shaded regions of a city were also occasionally funded by Black money. Basically these were all easy prey to be funded by unaccounted, untaxed money.

While I appreciate the efforts taken by the Indian authorities to bring unaccounted money back to India, I am against giving a colour to this currency. Colour classification has always spelt doom to our society and the Indian public has been quick at lapping it up, be it a fairness cream or a darker shade for the color of money.

Was Made in India!

You could often spot her around the city wearing a bright yellow top and a short black skirt. She wasn't size zero, which incidentally was unheard of those days, instead was curvy and cute. They told me she had a British lineage and it showed. The attire I described above was her uniform at work; she was also spotted at times wearing stunning white gowns with roses at the right places bringing the bride or the groom to the venue on their big day. She was the flag bearer for people in authority and on these occasions she was dressed in black, above all she had a big heart and could well accommodate the entire family and take them safely through the travails of rough rides in life. She was the pride of many households, who were very reluctant to let her go. When they did, they ensured she found an equally loving home. She would engage herself in self-improvement and took efforts to make a new ‘mark’ for herself each year. Even when her place was threatened by the trendier looking other woman, true to her name she stayed her diplomatic self.

She was punctual, she was elegant and she was the one every 18 year old aspired and depended on as they were put to test on their big day. She had many a beautiful face with slender hands that worked constantly and ensured that you were reminded that little time was left to achieve whatever you endeavored to. She was a legacy and sometimes stayed immortal over generations. She was workaholic, and her timings were perfect. Even when the Titans were out in force and threatened her very existence she did not stutter or stop, she held on to your wrists steadfastly like a loyal friend would. She was truly the maid from India who worked tirelessly to ensure you planned every second, minute and hour of your life meticulously. She was the first to bring about a culture of punctuality in every Indian when this virtue was a rarity; she kept time for the nation.

The irony is that, in the year the leaders launched Make in India campaigns with all pomp and splendor both of them have been euthanized. One, who true to her name stayed her diplomatic self, the AMBASSADOR car and the other who kept time for the nation for generations, HMT watches, shut shop for ever. I would have been happy if the Make in India campaign had been kick started by rejuvenating both these iconic brands.

Pee Pee!!! Poo Poo!!! – Trumpeting Cleanliness!!!

The new found penchant for cleanliness awareness in India has made me light-headed. The leader who has vouched ‘sweeping’ reforms quiet literally nominates celebrities in a fashion that resembles the ice bucket challenge. What you see next is the celebrities adorned in their Sunday bests flashing brand new brooms. Netas go to the extent of dumping waste before they can sweep it away for the photo op. Soon a sweeping selfie using the broom as the selfie stick would be the most in thing to post on social networks. A cricketing celebrity poses with it as though he is all set to execute his trade mark cover drive, a lady minister who is responsible for the resources presently and who is not so new to the art of posing poses like a devote daughter in law all set to impress her mother in law on her first day. This comparison might be archaic in today’s world, don’t bother about the relevance; I want you to focus only on the symbolism here. Since the image of a woman with a broom in hand could symbolise more than one interpretation, witch, (oops looks like the spell check did not do an auto correct) which, could also mean a damsel out to clean the society of all evils.

A clean India is every Indians dream from time immemorial. Having lived outside the country for close to 2 decades, it has been my dream too till date. We don’t need symbolisms; the need of the hour is a paradigm shift in civic sense. I grew up cycling or walking past streets in Madras following an olfactory GPS, though I have elucidated the olfactory enabled GPS in a positive way in an earlier post on Madras, I am forced to write on the negative side of the very same olfactory GPS in this post. The characteristic smell of Madras as we cross the Cooum river, once a navigable source is today an open drain. I was also a laughing stock of my cousins from Kerala who used to tell me that the sight of squatting men lining up the tracks leading to the Madras Central would remind them both visually and olfactorily of reaching the city. However over the years the so called clean Kerala was closing in on Madras with poor waste management and overflowing waste bins due to bad waste management. The sad part was that even in an Oscar winning movie, the poor state of sanitation in India played a key part. Remember the toilet scene in Jai Ho! What a pity? Cleanliness is next to Godliness goes the saying. However the recent emphasis on cleaning the Ganga is more out of Godliness than cleanliness, out of fear of the super natural.

As I said earlier we cannot win this war on cleanliness by just symbolisms and other media gimmicks but by a committed population that is willing to change, change should be from within and there needs to be an entire clean culture revolution that needs to happen, it might not happen during a 5 year term or even the next 5 year term of the leadership which believes in sweeping reforms overnight but will definitely happen if we educate the present 1 year olds and set examples that they can follow. So it might take at least a couple decades before we see a clean India. Unfortunately the leadership would be interested only in stuff that they can take credit for during their term. That’s exactly the reason why cleanliness drive across different governments has not gone beyond acts of symbolisms.

What we need is not just cultural revolutions and symbolic blitzkriegs but a substantial investment in infrastructure particularly in sanitation, all we need to do is that for the next 10 Years CSR initiatives of private sector should be restricted only to sanitation related projects. A toilet connected to the drainage system will hardly cost anything to the corporates. A dustbin revolution, source segregation and proper disposal of waste all are the need of the hour.

The celebrities endorsing the Swach Bharat campaign who are busy attending their call of nature in designer glamour rooms lined with Italian granite and have their dirt washed down with the best of German fittings have no clue on what it takes to stand in a queue to empty ones bowels and bladders.

Trumpeting with slogans like Saif for Safai or Sachin for Swach is not enough to dream about or create a clean India. What we need is an infrastructure revolution that can facilitate adoption of cleanliness by the common man.