This piece was written in the weeks following De-monetisation, and has since been updated slightly.
My wife was unexpectedly looking very happy when I reached home
last evening, with an expression much like that of a cat that has just licked
off the last remains of the cream from its moustache. (I hasten to clarify here out of abundant caution, my wife most certainly DOES NOT POSSESS a moustache).
After 30 years of enforced domesticity (some of my long-time friends’ wives would say servitude), I had learnt the folly of asking her directly the reason for her happiness. Even when, and especially because, she looked demure, lowering her gaze as I approached. Even so, I knew that such a question would have an answer that would, in some new way, show me up as severely wanting. So usually, I would be the more accurate candidate for feline analogies – seeing that when at home, I miaowed occasionally, soundlessly padded about the home messing up things, and sidled up next to her with arched back, looking for a stroke or two of appreciation. (I would have purred with anticipated satisfaction if I could, but unfortunately, the only purr I am capable of is abominably abdominal, that too sometimes involuntarily audible and, if spelt with a few more r’s at the end, onomatopoeically accurate).
For the last few weeks now, I have seen her privately smiling when she sees the news on TV. De-monetisation, my wife thinks, is a capital idea, IN CAPITAL LETTERS. Nowadays, our PM, I realise with a slight sinking feeling, is becoming more and more capable of making my wife smile than I seem to be. Whenever I spy her smiling, I inwardly console myself with one known fact, viz., that our PM leads the life of a confirmed bachelor; and another fact (known to her and me) that I am only single-digit-inches shy of his (known to all) chest dimensions, with a similar count and colour of hair, whether facial or on the head.
Why does she love de-monetisation so much? Many reasons, but the main ones as I have gathered, from hearing, observing and guessing, are:
1. We have been paying horrendous percentages of our income as taxes, for decades now, so that we can sleep well. At last, she hopes that it will not only tax the pockets of those who have got away with generating ‘black money’, but also convert them into insomniacs who will be jealous of our ability to sleep like babies.
2. My wife has an inbuilt, unceasing, self-refreshing To-Do list in her head. It includes at least a dozen items that appear at the top of the list every month: the tasks of making fund transfers for compensating all kinds of service providers. The To-Do alarms are apparently so loud in her head, that they regularly keep popping up as overdue tasks minutes after the date changes, forcing her awake, until they are paid. If the alarms were any louder, they would have disturbed my sleep too. But that is not necessary – she disturbs my sleep - I don’t need the alarms. To ensure her (and my) peaceful sleep from the night of Nov 30[RH1] she swung into action very quickly by Nov 10 (not to dispose of 500- and 1000-rupee notes stashed away secretly, as you might infer but for this clarification). All our service providers were told individually that if they did not give us their bank account details, they would not get any further salaries – whether with new notes or old. The only way we will pay them, we told them, is cashlessly. Today’s mantra is Less Cash. And woe betide anyone who objects to what our universally loved PM’s Mann ki Baat[RH2] . On the morning of Nov 30, when I was in office, I got a dozen loud SMS notifications in 20 minutes, each notifying me that a payment had been made to our “Iron Man”, Car Washer, Milkman, morning cook, evening cook, driver, etc. etc. (and even to the home-visit beautician!).
Even our PM’s stone-hard visage would crinkle into a smile if he knew that we are now the most digitally banked household in the whole of India (I am sure even Nandan Nilekani’s household must be spending more in cash as a percentage of expenses every month, than we do).
But then we have digressed. I began telling you about her suppressed smile this morning.
Today, she was not watching the news on TV. She was (I know because stole a glance at her iPad over her shoulder) reading something on Google Play Newsstand[RH3] News. And she was, I saw with a shudder, smiling while reading a story that spoke of the Kerala[RH4] Government’s unique (in India) action of passing a law that is being billed by the media as the Fat Tax. Pizzas, Burgers, Doughnuts, Tacos and other junk food served in
branded restaurants will henceforth attract a 14.5% Fat VAT in the State.
Some persons quoted in the media have said that the tax would not change consumption patterns, but only
yield more tax revenues, but it is undeniable that the higher taxes levied for decades on ‘sin’ products like tobacco products and alcohol have reduced the percentage of people smoking. Earlier, we had sections in restaurants for non-smokers. Now we have separate enclosures for smokers and bans on smoking almost anywhere else.
Now, let’s re-focus on the home front. I suddenly understood why she was smiling and looking at my midriff. She wasn’t demurely gazing downward! She was smiling in anticipation of an unexpected ally (Pinarayi Vijayan, the Kerala Chief Minister) she had got in implementing her next challenge – viz., ensuring that my midriff growth graph made a U-turn and receded faster than my hairline has been wont to.
For the last 10 days, she has been reminding me at least twice every day that she is recording the number of days I actually get out of the home and walk at least 2 miles. This was to hold me to account for my promise (made in a weaker moment) that I would do this regularly at least 5 times every week. My problem, I like to believe, is not uncommon. I love having exercised, though I hate to exercise. I have begun to resign myself to the realization that this exercise regime will become more inflexible as the weeks and months tick by. I now fear that she will not stop at reminding me twice daily. She must have learnt this trick too, from our PM. For weeks he kept telling people to come clean in the Income Declaration Scheme. And then, he stopped telling them. He acted – in one fell stroke, he de-monetised 86% by value of cash circulating in the country. Like our PM has been justifying the pain brought on by de-monetisation, she will now tell me that there is no gain without pain. I will say plaintively that nobody will even notice my weight loss, so why should I go through this pain? After all, who can sense any difference in the weight of a mountain if a rock rolls off it? But she knows that eventually, I will come round. And go round and round the nearby tank-that-masquerades-as-a-
Being a Chartered Accountant for much of my life, I cannot resist ending with some precedents and results of my ‘sin tax research’. My better half and the Kerala CM both have precedents on their side, it seems. In 2008, Japan passed a “metabo” law (Google the term if you don’t believe me) that mandated an annual waist measurement check of people aged between 40 and 75. (Human Resource Managers, take note! Go beyond Bone Density camps! Make PwC[RH6] stand
for People without Cholesterol). Employers and the local government had to ensure participation. If they failed, it was NOT fine. The “metabo” law levied a fine!
Denmark levied a FAT TAX on butter, milk, cheese, pizza, meat, oil and processed foods loaded with saturated fat in 2011. However, in 2012, it was abolished, because it failed to change peoples’ eating habits, and retailers complained that their customers were taking their business to nearby countries.
This ‘prohibitory arbitrage’ has been seen in some Indian states as well, with other ‘sin control’ measures like prohibition in place. Gujaratis[RH7] , young and old, predominantly male, are known to drive across the border to enjoy a tipple at bars that have mushroomed in ‘border towns’ like SIlvassa. Now, Keralites, young and old (and not just male) will begin driving into Tamil Nadu or Karnataka to gorge on branded burgers and tacos.
There are many more precedents for a soda[RH8] tax - more than 15 countries either currently levy, or have in the past tried to levy, a soda tax.
In India, lobbying is frowned upon, but bandhs[RH9] are acceptable. In most homes, in our current PM-raj[RH10] , don’t be surprised to find ardent supporters popping up, among the fairer sex especially, for soda bandh, fat bandh, and/or tobacco bandh. They will impose it on family members (especially males). Our PM is fresh from successfully mobilising the fairer sex in a pan-India project of toilet-training men by the millions in villages and urban slums with the stated objective of making India Open Defecation Free. The Kerala CM and the ex-Gujarat CM won’t stop at that - they have now embarked upon making us men change our eating and drinking habits, which is a pointed reference to the aforementioned soda tax, fat tax and prohibition.
Earlier I used to bemoan that I had reached the age where everything I like has become either illegal, immoral or fattening. In the near future, I can tell that all our future Tann ki Baat[RH11] and Tunn ki Baat[RH12] will have to remain our Mann ki baat. My moan will morph to: Everything I like is either illegal, illegal or illegal.
[RH1]The
first month-end after demonetisation was announced in India on 8 Novermber 2008
[RH2]The
title of our PM's popular weekly radio talk, meaning "Matters of the
Mind".
[RH3]Since
re-christened as Google News
[RH4]A
state situated in the south-west tip of India
[RH5]Update
14 years later: I have shed 2 stone 4, and become hooked to my daily
constitutional. I go for walks without her needing to needle me.
[RH6]I
used to work with PwC, one of the Big Four, when this piece was first published , and I wrote this article
mainly for internal circulation.
[RH7]Residents
of the Indian State of Gujarat along the west coast.
[RH8]Sparkling
water, a proxy for all sugary carbonated drinks
[RH9]Bandh:
A non-violent protest in support of a cause
[RH10]Reign
in the Hindi language
[RH11]Matters
of the Body
[RH12]Tunn is Hindi slang for drunk
