Better tomorrow
http://aaryablog.com/2022/09/29/better-tomorrow/
— Read on aaryablog.com/2022/09/29/better-tomorrow/
Failure of banks and the plight of depositors
In a country as large and diverse as India, it’s not surprising that banks and banking services, in spite of rapid expansion of the network and adoption of innovative models such as BCs and DSAs in remote areas, have yet not covered 100% of the population. And in spite of soft loans and various government incentivised loan schemes, usurious money lenders in some places are not completely out of business and are meeting exigencies, mostly by extending consumption loans. The benefits behind promoting organised banking are multi fold, though providing relief to poor village folks from the clutches of these blood thirsty usurious money lenders and encouraging habit to save, even if small, in the safe environs of the organised banks outweigh other benefits.
Under the circumstances, it’s most tragic when failure of an organised banking entity – mainly cooperative and private sector- happens due to mismanagement of affairs or other inherent structural weakness and thousands of innocent, poor and needy customers are made to suffer by disallowing them to withdraw their hard earned savings and restricting withdrawals to a small value. The recent enhancement in insurance of deposit by DICGC to Rs5 lakhs is a major reform, but it only reduces the amount of loss and doesn’t come to rescue immediately!
While a government already struggling to meet its obligations under various subsidies may find it extremely tough to guarantee all the deposits across all the banks irrespective of their ownership and structure, the question here is when all the banks are currently subjected to such stern and close supervision by the regulator then it may be worth contemplating whether all the banks can be made fail safe so that no depositor ever loses money kept in a bank or is put to any inconvenience in partially/ fully withdrawing it when in dire straits?
This thought arose in my mind when I read about the prolonged agony being faced by the depositors of PMC Bank since the restrictions imposed by RBI in 2019! Recent enhancement in withdrawal limit and acquisition of its assets and liabilities by Unity Small Finance Bank may be a case of too little too late! On the contrary, swift action was taken when Yes Bank stared at serious trouble and it was pulled out of woods virtually in no time thereby causing minimum of inconvenience to the customers. Can this model be prototyped for all future unfortunate failures of the organised bank ? Can innocent, believing customers afford not to worry about their monies kept in banks? Bit utopian but worth considering!
Each end leads to a new beginning
I started working when I had just past 21 years of age and looked forward to a long and wholesome career. Now just shy of 60, suddenly all those years are behind me and there are just months left- three to be precise, which will soon become days and then hours!
I am filled with mixed feelings – on one hand there’s relief to be getting away from big bad corporate world and on the other there’s anxiety as to what shall I be doing without the daily routine of last 40 years or so? This has led to composition of a few lines that read as under:
It seems like yesterday – my first day in office,
Fresh out of college and completely novice!
Indeed I became an expert and learned tricks of the trade
And by working hard, I was able to make it to a reasonable grade.
How the years passed by in running for that something is a mystery;
Lot of things were acquired yet all that seems like history!
As the professional journey nears its final bend
My heart says it’s just a pause and not an end!
There’s so much to be done and do much to explore
And that new journey will offer opportunities galore
I will fulfil dreams tucked in some corner of my heart
And start all over again with a new zeal and that’s the art!
#TheTrustOfIndia – Being an avid TOI reader for decades, for ages, one of the reasons for eagerly lapping up TOI copy every morning was to see what Laxman’s common man had to say regarding a hot topical issue, sometimes controversial, in his inimitable, witty and humorous way that was many a times more effective than the headline and yet bereft of any malice or affront to anyone. Laxman’s loss may be irreplaceable but his creation of common man continues to exhort millions of common people to acquire knowledge as knowledge is power. Speaking symbolically, common man is testimony of the fact that a sketch pencil is more powerful than a pen!
Kudos Arvind Kejriwal
In these Covid times, a good news is hard to come by. If on top of it, the good news is also progressive, it’s like an icing on the cake. I am talking about liquid decomposer invented by Indian Agricultural Research Institute ( IARI) , Pusa that can decompose the wheat stubble obviating the requirement of burning it. Burning of wheat stubble by Haryana and Punjab farmers is a major source of winter pollution in Delhi. Moreover, the decomposed stubble increases the fertility of the land. Delhi Government has offered to bear the expenses of spraying this decomposer in the fields of willing farmers.
While pollution is one of the biggest worries of the mankind, I have used the word progressive in the para above. Mumbai needs a metro network and a network that covers the size of Mumbai city needs a car shed. While Aarey as the green lungs of the city needs to be protected, I think a major part of the damage in the form of uprooting of trees had already happened and the new Government’s plans to shift this car shed from Aarey to Kanjur Marg may not control pollution much but will definitely set back the progress!
Arvind Kejriwal is much lampooned, but Delhiites, by re-electing him have clearly supported the man who is trying to do something differently. I appreciate the transition of this country into a healthy and strong federal structure, where people prefer a strong centre, but vote differently in state elections to back party/CM candidate that they expect will deliver the most. Capt Amarinder Singh, Bhupesh Baghel, Hemant Soren, Jagan Reddy, TR Chandrashekhar are all expected to work on developmental agenda in their respective states. Mamta can do more if she mends her relationship with Centre. And here in our very own Maharashtra, a unique experiment in the form of MVA headed by the son of soil Uddhav Thackeray should succeed and this Government must deliver to make Maharashtra the most progressive state and Mumbai, the numero uno city in the form of world class infrastructure and zero law and order issue. Arvind Kejriwal has shown the way how developmental agenda can be pursued for public welfare without conflict with Centre.
We need more such news and let Maharashtra take the lead!
My wife my companion- 3
My regular readers would be familiar with my earlier blogs around this theme, their essence being the importance of my wife’s company for me. Whenever she plans a trip alone, I look forward to some private moments, some serious reading, blogging and pursuing other interests, but within the days of her departure I start missing her bubbly presence around me. I just cite small example of this.
She’s highly ambitious, fiercely independent and strong willed. Once she decides on something, it’s very difficult to let her change her mind. And here for a moment I don’t mean ordinary matters! When she wanted this particular flat where we reside currently, she was fixated on it thought it was seriously out of budget for me. She exhorted me to take some risk and ultimately booked the flat, which we have since paid for fully by the grace of God. And yet today, while she’s on a personal visit to Delhi, she was giving me repeated calls while I was in a serious official meeting. And guess what she was frantically calling me for? To take my permission whether she should buy a large sized plum cake or a smaller one, the price difference between the two being a princely sum of Rs50. For someone who would be with her, she would be the most obedient wife who doesn’t move an inch without her hubby dear’s consent! It’s her this unpredictability and ebullience that makes me crave for her company, especially when she’s away!
She returns tomorrow with a permitted purchase of Rs280 and not not asked for stuff – only God knows! 😊
Perception
This COVID lockdown has given people an occasion to take a break from the daily rat race and reflect upon themselves – as to their vices, virtues, strengths, weaknesses and the very purpose of their life. Is it all about materialism – acquiring assets, gadgets, swanky cars or is there something beyond this? What about our inherent self and the way people perceive us? Are the two things aligned? Do people see us as we are or do we need to put up a facade to attract their attention and impress them? What if we decide to lead life on our own terms caring a hoot for opinion of others about us?
I am no psychoanalyst and the above aspects of of human personality are layered and complex. The decision to write this blog actually came from a friend who believes in living life on her own terms. She’s fiercely independent, courageous and the last thing would she ever do is to appease anyone – be it her boss, family or any other person of some importance.
Generally speaking such people don’t enjoy good perception in the eyes of others. Such people are considered to be haughty, conceited, unfriendly, difficult to get along with and best to be avoided. However, those who know her are fully seized of the fact that the above qualities are not at all representative of her real self. Independence is not haughtiness, self respect is not conceit, to be choosy about acquaintances is not unfriendliness and minding one’s own business is not difficulty to get along with!
Actually, the best use of this COVID lockdown would be to change the way we think – about ourselves and others. There’s so much that we need to to improve about own selves and there’s so much for us to learn from others, especially the kind mentioned above. It immediately brings to my mind a famous doha that reads –
बुरा जो देखन मैं चला, बुरा न मिलया कोई
जो दिल खोजा आपना मुझ से बुरा न कोई
When I started looking for a devil, I found none
When I dwelt deeper into myself, I was the one!
In English, there’s an adage – to each his own. Kaleidoscope of this world is colourful because it’s composed of people of all hues and colours. We need to remove the filter from our eyes to see this world in its original and real colours. And of course, my unsolicited advice to my friend would be – don’t change for the heck of it, but embrace those who accept you as you are! In this COVID lockdown apart from trying new hobbies, eating new dishes and watching new movies let’s also practice this habit of accepting people as they are instead of making false perceptions about them and developing an insecurity against strong and disdain against weaker personalities!
Happy birthday Papaji
Official Father’s Day is still a few weeks away- I think it’s celebrated on 21st June. But for me, this day falls today as it happens to be my father’s birthday, who would have turned 92 had he been alive!
He was the most simple person I had ever come across in my life. A self made man, I always saw him working hard with utmost sincerity and diligence. Always punctual for office, never missing office for a furlough and treating his office as a place of worship, he had to earn each penny, never receiving anything on the platter.
He amassed no wealth, met with limited professional success, hardly made any friends, had no bad habit apart from smoking a cigarette a day, which too he quit quite early in his life and hardly digressed into anything apart from going to office and coming back home to be with family. He read and wrote – nice little messages and once in a while some poetry, was fiercely nationalist and was an atheist, though God fearing.
Nothing spectacular, nothing great, yet such a lot to earn and emulate. Never hate anyone or envy his/her success or wealth was his life long motto. He cared for the most lower strata of the society and shared happiness with them in his own inimitable way. He never chased material things and was most satisfied with whatever he had.
Having enjoyed perpetual good health all his life, his old age was made painful by almost fatal accident he had! He fought back but eventually surrendered himself to cancer as he wanted to avoid painful chemotherapy in his ripe years and wanted to transit into eternity most peacefully.
A friend today wrote a most poignant blog on her mother and what I commented on her blog would be my concluding remark on this blog too – God no longer produces such specimens!
RIP Papaji, as we fondly use to call him!
Lockdown 4.0 – Is it going to be the end or beginning?
As we gear up to enter into lockdown 4, people are agog with hope that they are going to be a step closer to life before COVID. Train service has resumed with some restrictions, then there are Shramik Express trains taking labourers to their destinations, some pleasant change from the heart rending scenes of thousands of migrants walking hundreds of miles to their home towns , lock stock and barrel, with family and children in tow. Liquor shops and queues outside there has already been covered by me in one of the earlier blogs. As aforesaid, while the Prime Minister has raised hopes in his address to the Nation by declaring that lockdown 4.0 is going to be very different from the previous 3 lockdowns, we will have to wait for the final details. In any case, different state governments will take appropriate decisions keeping the local ground realities in their respective areas.
But all said and done, it’s simply clear that lockdown as we have witnessed since the Janta curfew is not going to continue in this form and life will start limping back to pre- COVID days, albeit slowly. Offices are expected to open with limited attendance, factories are going to start production, markets will open, e tailers will start deliveries, private vehicles may be allowed on the roads – in short it is expected that the nation is going to take a step towards business as usual.
Does it mark the beginning of the end of COVID menace, especially now that PM has announced an economic booster dose of 120000 crore to uplift poor, downtrodden, farmers and businesses, especially small? Yes, to my mind it’s going to be the end of one phase, but not conclusive or in finality! In fact, it’s going to be start of a much more difficult phase that will entail a very high degree of discipline and observance on our part to live alongside Coronavirus! Corona is not going anywhere too soon, vaccination still seems some distance away and treatment of choice is elusive. But when we have overcrowded cities, public transport that’s tested to the hilt and an enemy that’s so contagious that it is raring to go to a new victim, unless we maintain social distancing, wear masks, wash hands regularly, stay indoors in self quarantine if unwell and learn to live the life entirely the new way, the survival of humanity is going to be tested severely!
Lockdown 4 is not going to be a countdown to carefree pre-COVID days; it’s going to be an entirely new way of life – careful, disciplined, regimented, regulated and respected ( towards nature, fellow citizens and everything else that we had so far taken for granted).
COVID COVID Go Away
COVID COVID go away,
Human suffering is unbearable making all distraught;
Daily earners are starving to death,
Should they survive Covid’s onslaught!
These are heart rending scenes almost at par with the tragedy observed at the time of partition! Hordes of people, with whatever they could get hold of, children in their laps and elderly on their backs , unaware of the journey or destination just leaving the places they had lived for years in search of safer refuges!
This is the kind of havoc COVID has perpetrated on human beings. The lifeline of major cities – labourers, servants, drivers, in fact daily wage earners of all kinds- are fleeing these major cities like Delhi, Mumbai carrying whatever they can with their families in tow for their hometowns and villages. There are no trains or buses or any form of transport to alleviate their suffering ! They are absolutely unsure how and in how much time would they be able to reach their destination? Also, their movement is contrary to the current doctrines of getting locked down inside your homes, maintaining social distance and not to undertake any travel. There emigrants are exposing themselves and their families to grave risk of contacting COVID. Many of these could be active/passive carriers of this deadly virus, defeating the Government’s objective of confining this pandemic to pockets rather than let it spread everywhere. How will they survive days of journey on foot with kids and women? My heart bleeds ! Can something be done to assure these families to stay put and that their food requirements during the lockdown will be assured? Can governments facilitate their journeys by providing them with free transport?
I feel miserable, helpless and clueless ! I look skywards and pray to the almighty that:
COVID COVID go away
Don’t show your face again
People are starving and dying
And poor children just want to play!
My views are mine 