Demonetization – Not Quite the Demon

People who visit the temple-town of Sringeri, the famous seat of learning situated amidst the lush green hills of the Western Ghats, swear not only by Goddess Nature who has endowed so much to the place but also by a shop located in the vicinity of the temple. 

The shop is run by Sri.Vijayanarasimha along with his wife and son. It deals in the usual rich goodies that Malnad has to offer - various varieties of pickles and chutneys, chips, spices, oils and what not. While other shops can boast of the same quality of goods, what sets this shop apart is the savviness of the father-son duo. They develop an affectionate connection with the customers. I do not know how they do it, but they seem to remember customers and their choices in spite of having a large number of them. When net banking and online fund transfers were still in their infancy, they had a mail order system which enabled people to transfer money to their account online and get stuff delivered to their houses, all from the small town of Sringeri. Actually, make it the other way round. They would deliver stuff to your house, and you could then transfer money to their account. And yes, all from the small town of Sringeri. Their account was one of the first recipients I added for fund transfer from mine. 

As the various news outlets were publicizing and highlighting the difficulties undergone by the "aam aadmi" due to the demonetization of 500 and 1000 - rupee notes, I could not get this small store ( not so small now, bless them; they now have online sales also) out of my mind. Why is demonetization hurting us more than it ought to when transferring money is so easy? All it takes is honesty and trust!

We can't deny that the news channels and the English language newspapers had their own agenda in maligning the initiative of the government and this contributing to the confusion. The queues which were still manageable a day after demonetization grew longer and longer, owing to the panic willfully stoked by the media. False reports of people dying in ATM queues and of children dying because the older currency was not accepted were feverishly circulated by journalists themselves in the social media. One news channel shamelessly asked people to send videos of people suffering in queues. The situation truly started going downhill then.

It is a very Indian - nay, human mentality to stock up on or even hoard things when they promise to become scarce. It is programmed in our genes. And human history has been proving that the hoarders will, in a large number of cases, eventually be better off than the non-hoarders. After a couple of days, thus, our instincts got the better of our good sense and the queues outside banks became longer still.

The black money mafia also did their bit to make the situation more chaotic, by promising commission to people who would deposit money in banks on their behalf. There were many flavors of this scam. Paytm ads notwithstanding, a substantial percentage of the low-income group is gullible and this promise of easy money is too hard to pass by. The result was unprecedented chaos, with people standing multiple times in queues and fights reportedly breaking out in front of the banks, adding to the general disorder.

There were many things that could have been done to reduce inconvenience to the people. Obviously, the initiative has to come from the people first. There were people drawing money from three or four cards when it was their turn at the ATM, adding to the wait time for the others in the queue. Banks could have mandated that only one card could be used at a time. Also, people who could get by with plastic money could have done so for a longer time instead of standing in queues and complaining. Let us face it, waiting is not pleasant for anyone – for us and also the bank employees. The security guard at the HDFC bank near my house was so cheerful and helpful even after dealing with hundreds of people who only had questions and complaints. Yes, that is another thing that would have helped – a smile of acceptance on the faces of the people. Because however much we try to argue against it, we know that this move of demonetization of high-value notes is going to be eventually good for the country.

If shop-owners had accepted cards and cheques it would have made life a lot easier for everyone. The day after demonetization, I was out shopping for some lamps in a respectably-sized shop in the heart of Bangalore. The bill came up to a decent amount of around 400 rupees. I offered to pay by card, but the shop-owner did not accept cards. And no, cheques were not accepted either. I did not have cash on me. After a lot of haggling over the mode of payment, the shop finally accepted the five-hundred-rupee note that I offered. I later learned that the cash transactions are not logged properly, so as to avoid tax.

So that's the root of this evil. With the memory of 97% tax and no development etched in our minds, we cannot bring ourselves to pay even a reasonable 35% amount as tax. And when the government does what it has to do to recover taxes we whine and complain because it is inconvenient. God help us!

In contrast, some people rose to the occasion and started conducting more cashless transactions. I paid my kids’ music class fees via online transfer. By the way, the teacher happens to be a housewife.

Finally, I recall the infamous words of a departed politician, said at a different time in a different context but completely valid now. When a big tree falls, the earth shakes.

'Complications' by Atul Gawande

Writing about books has two positive results and one negative. The positive results first. One -I never run out of subjects provided I keep on reading new books, and two - suppose I want to remind myself of this book, say a few years later, I can just read this review of mine. I have often felt the need for the latter. The negative result - I will be writing about things I have not experienced personally. Many of the ideas will not be my own. But I am willing to take that risk. Henceforth I plan to write about all the interesting books I read. I hope to intersperse the "book-review posts" with other subjects, but let that be for now.

The latest book I read, 'Complications' written by Atul Gawande, was very, very interesting, and it is an understatement. I have been interested in the medical field for as long as I remember. When I go to the doctor either as a patient or as the patient's relative, I am informed. I usually have a fair idea of the side effects of the medicines prescribed. However, after reading 'Complications', I realized how inadequate all that was. It was an epiphany. I trust a couple of doctors implicitly, and the fact that they too can be fallible, is scary, but true. The book talks about mistakes that even good doctors might make, and that wee bit of extra cautiousness that has often saved patients' lives.

Gawande writes with the clinical precision and detachment capable only of a surgeon. And yet there is humanity, there are the intense emotions that even doctors experience. There is not a dull chapter, or even a dull sentence in the book. It could be called delightful, if the subject were not so morbid and serious.

I remember freaking out when I went to the hospital at an unearthly hour and saw the young, inexperienced duty doctor instead of my usual gynecologist. One cannot deny that more experience makes better doctors. And age does matter. Most people I have met are more comfortable with old, experienced doctors than younger doctors with sophisticated degrees. Gawande states an instance where experience came in real handy. A patient came in with a reddened and swollen leg. All the indications were pointing toward cellulitis, a common but treatable infection. But just weeks ago, Gawande had lost one of his patients to necrotizing fasciitis, a rare and fatal bacterial infection that can be treated surgically, only in the very initial stage. (These bacteria, usually strains of streptococcus A, can enter the body through a "wound" as small as a pinprick.) His experience made him order a biopsy and his fears were indeed true. The patient had most of the tissue removed from her leg, but she survived. What would have happened to her if the doctor did not have this kind of an experience earlier? Would the warning bells have sounded even then? It is really hard to say!

There is also this matter of statistics. Cellulitis is a common infection. And about 5% of the cases, thought to be cellulitis at first, turn out to be necrotizing faciitis. Does this help the doctor make a decision on whether the patient in front of him right then has one or the other? Can a good doctor assume that exactly 5 out of a hundred cellulitis-patients that see him have the flesh-eating bacteria? No! Statistics are there to just comfort and/or caution, but they can never be used as a guideline.

From the days of Hippocrates and our own Sushruta, Medical Science has been improving. But newer technology has its own costs. I remember feeling elated when I read about "laparoscopic cholesystectomy" in my high school days. I thought of all the lives that would be saved because of the new technology. The thought that never came to me till I read "Complications" was the learning curve of the doctors. Gawande describes a laparoscopic cholesystectomy (the removal of the gall bladder) that he performed. Only after reading that did I realize how complicated it was, how difficult it was to learn new techniques. Doctors, like all others, take time to learn. But unlike us engineers, their experiments are with life; the stakes are high. One mistake, just half a second of haziness while wielding the scalpel can kill. Okay, I may be exaggerating, but the point is that doctors are responsible for the most precious things in this world.

And they deserve that responsibility. Risks have to be taken if lives are to be saved. Gawande talks about an unusual surgery, the gastric bypass surgery. (There was a report about this surgery in this week's 'Health' supplement of the Indian Express). In this surgery, the stomach is stapled, thereby reducing its size, and about a metre of the small intestine is bypassed, so that less food is absorbed. This is the best cure now available for morbid obesity. I mean, just think of the capability of one four-hour surgery! Many people are leading healthy and happy lives because of the surgery. So, at some point, a decision has to be made. For doctors, however, difficult decisions have to be made all the time.

In the Indian tradition, we say that one should trust the doctor completely. Indeed, it is said that the result is proportional to our trust. From a psychological perspective, this makes complete sense. Though *all* our illnesses are not rooted in the mind, many of them are. Therefore, trusting the doctor is important. But how far do we go? Ultimately it is our own body we are talking about. In Kannada they say 'ಹೊಸ ವೈದ್ಯರಿಗಿಂತ ಹಳೆ ರೋಗಿಯೇ ಮೇಲು', which is true to some extent (My grandma used to do this. She had diabetes, and whenever she ate an extra sweet, she would take a little more of her diabetes medication, without consulting the doctor!). There should be a sort of a compromise between the doctor and the patient as to who listens to whom, to what extent.

'Complications' got me started on thinking about a related thing. There are happy endings and sad endings. But, isn't 'Life' mysterious? A person who has four heart attacks may survive and thrive, whereas another may die of a pinprick. A pacemaker can help an ailing heart, a ventilator can substitute the lungs and a dialysis machine, the kidneys. What is the nature of that "one thing" that keeps all these and more working together in so much harmony that if one organ fails, all the others gradually fail, too. I am delving into Philosophy here, but isn't that a question worth considering?

Of Poverty, Perseverance and Dharavi

It is not uncommon to see people seeking alms in Bangalore. Today, while coming to work, I saw a woman with a child in her arms, begging at a traffic signal. It was not a pretty sight. The baby, probably about six months old, was blissfully asleep in its mother's arms. I usually do not give money as alms, but this time I gave what small change I had, knowing well that what I gave was not sufficient even for one meal of the baby.

Did the Mother have a choice? I tried to give her the benefit of doubt. Hers was probably a genuine case. She was probably not skilled in anything, and had the burden of the child to bear. But I have this feeling that there are always jobs available for the industrious and those who really want to work to make ends meet. Why, then, do people resort to begging? I am inclined to think that it is the "man-with-the-twisted-lip -syndrome", as harsh and insensitive as it may sound.

There was a time when 'ಕರತಲಭಿಕ್ಷಾ ತರುತಲವಾಸ:' was regarded highly, when poverty in terms of food, clothes and money was almost synonymous with the richness of the mind and intellect. But this is not that kind of a time. If one is reasonably intelligent and industrious, he/she can find a job (much better than begging), that might fetch enough to ward away hunger. In the olden days, one-sixth of honestly-earned money was supposed to be given off as charity. True, giving money away as charity is good for the giver, but does it not make one section of the society totally dependent on the favors of another? Won't that breed class distinction and class-wars?

I contrasted my experience with this article on Sepia Mutiny, about the Dharavi slum. I had read about the Dharavi slum a couple of years ago in the Kannada magazine, Taranga. And the picture I got from that was that of a dirty slum filled with frustrated people, as one sees in some movies. But this article was a real eye-opener for me. The slum is dirty alright, but the people are industrious, and becoming prosperous. The reason for this is their enthusiasm and spirit, that enable them to fight against all odds.

Apparently there are more than five-thousand one-room factories and many cottage industries in the two sq. km. area of Dharavi, whose collective annual turnover is a whopping 1 billion dollars! If that is not amazing, I don't know what is! Apparently they still do not pay taxes properly, but let us not think about it for now. 85% of the households have a television and 56% have a gas stove... A funny thing, as an aside - do 29% of the slum-dwellers think that the TV is more necessary than a gas stove? Oh, and 21% of the people own telephones. A really good number for a shantytown!

I can give other examples too. A lady used to work as a domestic help in my Grandmother's house. She worked in a few houses everyday for a few years and got her children (two boys), educated. Both of them did their B.E. The younger one lived in Canada for some time and made a lot of money. Now they all live in their own, big house with cars and other luxuries. One can say that Lady Luck was on their side, that the sons were intelligent and all that, but would they have become so successful if they did not have that strong desire to succeed, and if they had not worked so hard? To reiterate a point I feel very strongly about - if one really wants something (and perseveres), the whole universe will conspire in helping him achieve it.

The work-hard-and-sell-hard concept worked for the residents of Dharavi. Will it work for this woman and her child I met? And so many other men, women and children who have to beg for their living? Or rather, will they let it work for them? I fervently hope so, in spite of having a man like this at the helm.

Japan and India

As I was watching the movie "Last Samurai", I sensed this uncanny similarity between our (Indian and Japanese) cultures. Though my knowledge of Japanese culture is limited to a couple of movies, a couple of visits to the Japanese sections of some good museums and some websites, I feel strangely one with this people; it is the kind of sense of oneness I felt with the Rajputs.

Perhaps what impressed me so much was their respect for honour. Probably, in my most subconscious mind, that is what I seek to achieve, and that is what endears these people to me. Being a woman, I identify myself with Rajput women. It is not just the Rani Padminis and the Rani Durgavatis, but the ordinary peasant women, the wives and daughters of warriors that inspire me to better myself constantly. To me, these are the epitomes of womanhood; affectionate, dutiful and proud. They make me proud of being a woman. And surprisingly, the woman Taka in the movie too, made me feel the same way.

When I browsed the www for articles on the Samurai and the Meiji revolution, I found many similarities between our situations through the centuries. We, Indians were a composite mixture of warring kingdoms and allowed Islam and the West to take advantage of us in the name of trade and modernisation, respectively. Consequently, we lost respect for ourselves and became worshippers of white skin. While I do not know if the Japanese are as rootless as we are, from my googling, I saw many articles that eulogised the Meiji revolution and few about the honourable ways of the Samurais. The supporters of the Meiji revolution have a lot in their favour. It is because of this revolution that Japan is a developed nation now. But my argument is that this revolution did not have to do away with all the great things that Japanese culture stood for, in the name of modernisation! Their counterparts in our country, the "liberal" leftists, also eulogise the British and Islamic invasions, saying that they are the reason we developed trade (we let every invader plunder our resources), we became modern (meaning that we learned how great the English were), and pluralistic (that is, we learnt to bend over backwards to please our pseudosecular "intellectuals"). From what I saw, the same is true of the Japanese too. The western countries took advantage of Japan and robbed its soul through meaningless modernisation. The same happened to India at the hands of the British. While Emperor Meiji helped the West in Japan, our own Rajas and Nizams did that in our country.

Before people accuse me of being an old fogy who loves to live in the past, let me make one thing clear. I am all for modernisation. But the modernisation should be meaningful. Any modernisation that makes us forget who we really are, is despicable. If modernisation provides food, water and education to families which could not afford them otherwise, it is good. But if the same modernisation makes these people think lowly of themselves it will have very bad consequences.

I can see the ill-effects of modernisation in India. Schools in India do not teach respect for Indian culture. I studied at a not-so-well-known school in Bellary, a large town. The name of the school was in Kannada. In this school, our prayers were all in English. Not one Samskrita shloka or a Kannada prayer was taught. We used to speak in English all the time. I love the English language, but I hate not knowing my own language. My parents taught me to love Kannada, but what about hundreds and thousands of other kids who studied in that school? If this is the state of Kannada in Bellary, what will it be in Bangalore? These days, when we visit MG Road, salespeople in shops do not respond to you unless you speak in English. Do we need this kind of rootless modernisation?

If people are educated only with facts and not biases, things will improve. Japanese should have been taught the greatness of the Samurai, along with the greatness of the West. We should have been taught about Aryabhata and Brahmagupta's theorems along with Pythagoras' theorem. I do not know the situation in Japan, but in India, barely 1% of the people know about these things. I sincerely hope that things change for the better.

End of Power on Sulekha

The End of Power on Sulekha
I was reading the comments posted here, and some peoples' attitude shook me, really. Some of us weep for Kashmir, in spite of Article 370 and inspite of it being the biggest drain on the Indian taxpayers' money. And some more people want to divide India further, because NI is supposedly "holding up" the country's progress ! It really takes all sorts to make a world (or a country, in this case)!

Let me make one thing clear first. I am a South Indian. I am a proud Kannaditi and a prouder Indian. But, being a native of Bellary, which borders Andhra and is a place that has a lot of Telugu influence, and having lived in Madras for some time, I can really appreciate the plurality of our country. That is what India is. It is a plural society. I might be called a Hindutva fundamentalist for saying this, but the main thing that unites our country is the sanAtana dharma (don't call it Hinduism, please) and samskritam. Recently, at a Samskrita Bharati meeting here in the US, I saw people speaking all languages come together and converse in Samskritam(an 18-month old baby included), and pride welled up in my heart, for being a part of this amazingly diverse country that is India.

I still remember the time when my Mother was teaching us this patriotic song, 'bhAratIyaru nAvu endendu ondE'. There were tears in her eyes when she sang 'kAshmIradinda kanyAkumAriyavarege kaMgoLipa tAynADe prANakU migilemage'. Though I was too young to understand that emotion at that time, it left a lasting impression upon me. India is one single entity. The uneducated Bihari, the ultramodern employee at the posh MNC in Bangalore, the communist from WB, the truck driver in Punjab are all Indians first. We, as Indians, must do what is possible by us, to make the lives of each of these people better. I would try to convert the commie, not try to secede WB from India!

There could be one very influential reason why the NIs and SIs are the way they are. They faced many onslaughts from Islamic invaders. Until the sea-route was established, whoever invaded India, came through the North. This protected the South from the invaders, but changed the culture of the North Indians considerably. That is why we see NI women wear veils, but not SI women. Unfortunately, it was not just the culture that was changed, it was the complete attitude of the people. NIs are much more courageous and hardened than SIs. When SI was being ruled by the Wodeyars, NI was under the direct rule of the British. Because of prolonged tyrannic rule, peoples' expectation from the Government went down drastically. (Even after independence, we have not exactly had good governments.) That is why we see so much corruption in NI. People passed this attitude on to their offspring and they passed it on to theirs. It is nothing that good education cannot fix!

Blaming NI for the slow progress of our country is not fair. This is especially because NI also deserves a fair share of credit for SI's progress. Until we understand that we are Indians irrespective of the region we live in, our country will not progress economically or culturally.