एका म्हशीची गोष्ट / A Story of a buffalo

माझ्या लहानपणीची गोष्ट आहे. शाळेत जाताना गोरेगांव रेल्वे स्थानकाच्या बाजूला असलेल्या म्हशींच्या बाजारातून आम्ही मुले चालत जात असू. एके दिवशी बघितले तर तिकडे एक मोठी लॉरी उभी होती. तिच्या मागच्या उघड्या बाजूला एक रुंद लाकडाची फळी लावली होती.  त्यावरून म्हशींना लॉरीवर चढवत होते.  त्यांना दुसऱ्या बाजारात नेण्यात येत होते.

काही म्हशी शांतपणे फळीवरून चढत लॉरीमध्ये निमुटपणे जाऊन उभ्या राहत होत्या परंतु काही म्हशी फळीवर चढायला तयार नव्हत्या. त्यांना फळीवर चढवायला चार पाच भैये प्रवृत्त करत होते तरीसुद्धा त्या ऐकायला तयार नव्हत्या. शेवटी भैयांनी त्यांच्यावर जबरदस्ती करायला सुरुवात केली. प्रथम त्यांना फळीवर ढकलू लागले पण म्हशी फळीच्या दोन्ही बाजूने खाली उतरू लागल्या. भैयांना ते सहन नाही झाले. दोन भैये फळीच्या दोन बाजूला उभे राहिले व जश्या म्हशी फळीच्या बाजूला सरकायच्या तसे ते हातातल्या काठीने त्यांना मारून ठुस्कावून परतवू लागले. म्हशींजवळ आता काही पर्याय उरला नव्हता. फळी वरून परत फिरले तर मागे दोन भैये, बाजूने पळायचा प्रयत्न केला तर दोन्ही बाजूला एक असे दोन भैय्ये उभे. म्हशी त्यांच्या माराला घाबरून शेवटी फळीच्या चौथ्या दिशेला म्हणजे लॉरीमध्ये जाऊ लागल्या.

सर्व म्हशी लॉरीत गेल्यावर चारही भैये विजयी मुद्रेने एकमेकाकडे बघू लागले. एकाने लॉरीचा मागचे फळकुट वर करून साखळीने घट्ट बांधून बंद केले व लॉरीवर एक काठी मारून, चालकाला निघायचा आदेश दिला. लॉरी त्या म्हशींना घेऊन निघाली. चारही भैय्ये आपल्या पराक्रमावर खुश होऊन, कपाळावरचा घाम फुसत, बाजूच्या चहाच्या टपरीवर जाऊन चहाचे भुरके मारत बसले.

मी त्या म्हशींची किंव करावी कि त्या भैय्यांच्या सफलतेचे कौतुक करावे ह्या संभ्रमात शाळेच्या दिशेने चालू लागलो.

काळ असाच पुढे सरकत गेला, वर्षानंतर वर्षे मागे पडू लागली. २००५ साली झालेल्या सार्वजनिक निवडणुकीनंतर कॉंग्रेसने समविचारी पक्षांचे गठबंधन करून सरकार सरकार स्थापन केले व अचानक भारताच्या उद्योगवृद्धी दराने चढती घौडदौड सुरू केली. बांधकाम उद्योगाने तर सर्वांनाच चकीत करून टाकले. घरांच्या किमती एक दोन वर्षातच तीन चार पट वाढल्या.

मला अजूनही स्पष्ट आठवते, माझा मित्र २००५ साली मुंबईत अंधेरीला एक घर घेत होता. साधारण २४ लाखाला त्याला ते मिळत होते परंतु त्याने २२ लाखाची तयारी दाखवली. घरमालकाने २४ चा आकडा तर माझ्या मित्राने २२ चा आकडा पकडून ठेवला व तो सौदा झालाच नाही. मित्राची नोकरीतून बदली झाली व तो पुढील दोन वर्षांसाठी इंग्लंडला निघून गेला. तो परतला तेव्हा त्याच घराचा भाव साठ लाख झाला होता. आता ते घर दोन लाखासाठी सोडाच तर पूर्णपणे त्याच्या आवाक्याबाहेर गेले होते.

पुढे २००८ साली जागतीक अर्थव्यवस्था अशी काही मंदीच्या खाईत पडली की आजमितीपर्यंत ती स्वतःला सावरू शकली नाही. भारताची अर्थव्यवस्था काही ह्याला अपवाद नव्हती, आपल्याकडेही बहुतेक सारेच उद्योग अजूनही मंदीचा सामना करत आहेत. देशातील विविध क्षेत्रातील विद्वान आपापल्यापरीने सरकाराला मंदीतून बाहेर पडण्याचे उपदेश देत आहेत परंतु परिस्थितीत काही जास्त फरक पडला नाही.

गेली दोन एक वर्षे गृहबांधकाम उद्योग, कमी विक्रीमुळे शांत पडला आहे. बिल्डर्स सतत सरकारला, ग्राहकांना घरे खरीदण्याचे प्रोत्साहन देणाऱ्या योजना बनविण्यासाठी साकडे घालत आहेत. त्यांच्या मते गृहकर्जे स्वस्त केली म्हणजेच त्यावरील व्याजदर कमी केला तर घरांची विक्री वाढेल. दुसरी एकसूचना गृहकर्जे देणाऱ्या संस्थांनी मांडली की गृहकर्ज परतफेडीवर व त्यावरील दिलेल्या व्याजावर आयकरात सूट दिली तर ग्राहकांना कर्जे घेण्यास प्रोत्साहन मिळेल.

आश्चर्याची गोष्ट म्हणजे एकही माणूस बिल्डर्सना घरांच्या किमती कमी करण्याचा उपदेश करत नव्हता. सर्वांच्या मते ह्या मंदीच्या रोगाचे मूळ कारण ग्राहकच होता. जिथपर्यंत तो घरे घेण्यासाठी पुढे येणार नव्हता तिथपर्यंत मंदी उठणार नव्हती. थोडक्यात जो काही इलाज करायचा तो म्हणजे ग्राहकाला जबरदस्ती ठुस्कून पुढे ढकलणे हाच होता. सगळ्याचा कहर म्हणजे काही दिवसांपूर्वीच आपल्या वित्तमंत्र्यांनी एक विधान केले की बांधकाम उद्योग सध्या संकटातून जात आहे व त्यांना सरकारने मदत नाही केली तर तो मरून जाईल.

आणी मला म्हशींचा प्रसंग आठवला.

नजरे समोर चित्र उभे राहिले त्यात लॉरी म्हणजे बिल्डर्सचा आ वासलेला हावरा जबडा फळीच्या एका बाजूला बिल्डर्स तर दुसऱ्या बाजूला कर्जे देणाऱ्या संस्था व माठीमागे सरकार. फरक एकच होता तो म्हणजे फळीवर बुद्धीवादी ग्राहक होते. बुद्धी ग्राहकाला लॉरीत जाण्याची अनुमती देत नव्हती तर सरकार उघडपणे ग्राहकाला काठीने ठुसकण्याचे काम करू शकत नव्हते! फळीच्या दोन्ही बाजूचे कधी काकुळतीने तर कधी डोळे वटारून सरकारला खुणा करत होते की अरे बाबा जबरदस्तीने नाही तर गोंजारून तरी म्हशीला लॉरीत चढवा !!

An open letter to the Finance Minister

Hello Mr. Finance Minister,

I know that now a days you are in immense pressure of putting together budget exercise at a time inflation, current account and fiscal deficit and what not, is haunting the Indian Economy but I am sure you will come out winner with flying colours.

In the recent past you have been warning all of us about the ill effect of ‘Gold Rush’ on the current account deficit and inflation. The point is well taken.

However there is a bigger monster called ‘Real Estate Bubble’ that needs to be addressed rather than spurt in Gold prices.

Let me try to explain;

There was a general perception formed that RBI, despite so many hints from your ministry to reduce interest rates, was not obliging. Instead it continued to cite an excuse that the inflation was not within tolerable limits to reduce interest rates.

Many a times you had not liked this reasoning by RBI and sometimes you were very vocal about it too.

Most of the India’s illustrated industrialists, time and again ridiculed RBI’s thinking by questioning if RBI could tame inflation by keeping interest rates high for so long. In fact according to them higher interest rates were detrimental to the economic growth. Major capital investments were kept on hold because of the high interest cost.

Further they advocated that a better and long term solution to tackle inflation was to boost economic growth by reducing interest rates. They felt that the inflation was not too high as it looks because the major contributor to the inflation figure was food inflation. Hence the food inflation should be viewed separately and treated differently. They argued that increasing interest rates would help taming general inflation but certainly not the food inflation because the real issue was from the supply side and not demand side. Hence it was essential to improve the food supply rather than keeping interest rates high.

One cannot deny that the issue of food inflation is actually a monster in the making.

It is agreed that it is a supply side problem but what are the reasons for this? Drought? Storage facilities? Distribution Network? Or less produce? All these are contributing to it in their own proportion.

However in future, one factor i.e. less produce is going to assume bigger magnitude.

Here comes the ‘Real Estate Bubble’ into play.

Has anybody thought of the impact of the ‘Real Estate Bubble’ on the food inflation? Yes, there is a direct consequence of it.

Since 2005-06 due to the realty boom, the land prices have shot up beyond any reasoning. The greedy builders were on the land buying spree over the years, till may be up to last year. They thought that fatter the land bank brighter would be their profit projections and they started buying land as if there was no tomorrow.

This resulted in hefty offers to the farmers for their land. A current generation farmer felt that he would not see so much money in his entire life time, if he had to continue cultivating land for the rest of his life or may be few more generations to come. The natural option that he exercised was to sell land. He thought that if he had money he could always buy grain from the market rather than producing it himself. He chose to absolve himself from the hectic procedure of cultivating land.

The greed of builders had descended on farmers now.

They started selling land for hefty amount and realizing their distant dreams. They built bigger houses equipped with latest amenities. They bought latest and costliest brands of cars. One has to visit villages to see for himself the number and brand of cars owned by the farmers and their lifestyle. They would put an average urban rich in to complex.

However this was a one time income and one time spend. So the initial outcome was what the economist called as ‘Consumption Driven Economic Growth’. This was reflected in the inflated profit margins of FMCG companies. Not to forget there was no follow up income to sustain continuous consumption in the long run.

On a flip side, due to hoarding of land by the builders, the land available for actual cultivation has contracted resulting in lower agricultural produce. This is one of the causes of ‘supply side’ issue of food inflation.

At the moment one may debate that this impact is not much to be worried about. But if the real estate bubble continues then trust me it is the worst dinosaur in the making.

Some time ago Mr. Finance Minister, you had made a very prudent statement that the need of the hour was to release money that has got blocked in real estate. This money had to come into circulation in order to boost liquidity and improve economic activities.

Unfortunately we didn’t see any follow up.

On the other hand the builder lobby as if ignorant to the ‘bubble’, has always advocated for various ways of inducing buyers to buy their unsold inventory. One such way is to reduce interest rates. Their justification is that it would make cheaper loans with lower EMI, available to the buyers.

It is very painful that industrialists and builders are giving advice that suits their interest without giving any importance to Indian economy as a whole and people at large.

But Mr. Finance Minister, it is you who should take an objective view of the situation in the interest of the nation. You should not fall prey to such ‘interested advices’.

The common man of India is looking up to you to take judicious action to burst this bubble.

Please don’t fall into trap of the realtors grumble that real estate industry is in trouble and it needed Government to support it.

They need to be educated the meaning of ‘Industry in trouble’. An industry is said to be in trouble if there are no buyers to its products even at bare minimum prices and not when there are plenty of buyers eager to buy but because of the high prices, are not able to buy.

This is a case of ‘Buyers in trouble’.

Realtors are in financial problems because of their greed of hitting gold mine. They had initially reinvested their revenues in the land purchases and later borrowed money to pump up land bank. They chose to put money into hoarding land rather than developing it and selling the units.

I am sure you will prefer to address the issue of Indian economy as a whole than that of few interested sections.

Yours truly,

Avinash Mainkar

avi02@yahoo.com

Why do some people crave for limelight?

 

Yesterday a friend of mine introduced me to his friend named Ashok, a music composer. I was told that Ashok used to assist a famous music director of yesteryears from hindi film industry and now works independently. My friend was full of praises for him and I being a music lover was excited to meet such a person and listen to his experiences and achievements.

Listening to his praises, Ashok responded bitterly by asking my friend to stop praising and further said that it is different in Pune than in Mumbai.  In pune people would proudly say that so and so music composer hails from our Pune or he belongs to our Pune but this doesn’t happen in Mumbai.  He further added that forget people in Mumbai at large but even many of the residents of the society that he lived in, were not aware of his name despite having lived there for more than a decade.

That sent me thinking why people from filmy background are always craving for lime light and  recognition of people at large.

I felt like telling him that boss excuse me but in Mumbai there are many achievers and from various fields.  Film industry is not the only industry that exists in Mumbai. There are TATAs, Ambanis, Garwares etc. besides Bachchans and Khans.

I am sure that these people don’t crave for publicity or public attention like Ashok was expecting for his fraternity.

As a matter of fact I would say that the famous names from the film industry are a subject of general knowledge and in today’s world there are many people who don’t have adequate general knowledge.

The other day I was watching a film promo of Aamir Khan’s film, where he was asked few general questions such as who was the finance minster of India.  He could now answer one such question.  What would you say to that? Should that minister crib that he was not recognized in India? No, it is just that one Aamir Khan’s general knowledge lacked his mention. 

But what would happen if it were otherwise? People like Ashok would certainly grumble that a central minister of India is not  even aware of Aamir Khan!  

To justify his stance Ashok asked me that how many would know the names of the lyricists of the famous songs ‘Munni badnam hui’ or ‘Sheila ki jawani’.  I thought to myself that these names were better off to be forgotten like these songs would be forgotten after a while.  I for sure would want my child to remember lyricist of a song ‘Eh mere vatan ke logo’ rather than ‘Munni badnam hui’ if at all he had to remember names of lyricists of hindi film songs.

 

What do you say?