and they say Inflation is good...

Woke up on a lazy working day with a copy of mint in my hand and  eyes still half closed searching for my specs.. Much needed hike in diesel prices it reads and I thought,  finally the government seems to be waking.. the fiscal deficit might come slightly under control, might send a positive signal to the market..

After a few days I met Dinesh, a skilled painter with bony physique,  who was finishing the final coat of our drawing room ..how is it going I asked him and he looked too busy with his job not really interested in answering any thing. After 5 minutes he comes to me with his clothes spotted with drops of paint and shoulders drooping with the toil of the whole day work and explains, " the price for cooking gas has become 100 Rs/ kg now, price of wheat floor has increased by 5 Rs a kg. My room rent which I share with 3 other inmates has increased from Rs 1500 to 2000 , I am finding it very difficult to sustain here in this city, sending money back home seems to be impossible, I  don't know where to go and how to survive "

I thought to myself, " Dinesh's monthly earnings must be close to Rs 4000 as he was being paid 200 Rs a day by the contractor, All is not so well in India after all ".

Was the diesel price hike the only way to control fiscal deficit, why not put additional duty on the prices of diesel cars? Whenever I see people buying diesel cars the thought hits me, this car is going to consume gallons of fuel subsidized at the cost of people like Dinesh. the thought comes and go and I get busy in other consuming thoughts ..


 

About the Slum dwellers and the Millionaires..

Slumdog Millionaire, a tale of impoverished Indian slum dweller who goes through troubled time but went on to become a millionaire by winning the game show “ Who wants to be a millionaire “. The movie showed abject poverty and humiliating conditions which will make you say the F word umpteen number of time .It’s a typical Mumbaiya bhelpoori with emotions of anger, pity, disgust, romance, action, evil, lust, crime all mixed together with music and a happy ending, good enough to be seen once but is no different than lot many other bollywood movies. 

Bollywood has a habit of over doing things, shows stuff which seems larger than life and involves far too many coincidences which are hard to believe, this time it was Hollywood to follow our suit and people just loved it.

If we actually go to dhaaravi, the second largest slum in the world, it houses a population of nearly 2.5 million people with an average density of population as high as 17000. Life is tough there and people are living in horrible conditions but things shown in the movie looked a bit over stretched. No wonders the film is doing great in western world. They are allowed to see what they proclaim India is about and it was not surprising to see the long list of awards and recognition the movie has got since its release.

I went to many movie discussion forums to get the feel of the opinion’s about the movie, people from different parts of the world are claiming that the movie shows ‘Real India ‘ , which may be a truth for about half of India but is definitely hard to swallow.

The main issue which remained unhighlighted in the movie is about the great divide between the Slum dwellers and the Millionaires. The country which boasts about the richest people in the world also houses the poorest amongst the poor. India’s Gini Index has increased from 34 in 1950 to 38 in 2000’s; it clearly shows that the wealth is getting concentrated among far fewer people than desired, certainly a cause of concern and requires some action.