01 September 2013, 04:22 PM IST
Dear Indian,
I've never written a letter before. I brought myself to writing one because I am told you listen to the language of money, and nothing else. I am not sure, but I thought I would give it a try.
Do you know you are a bundle of contradictions? You say you are worried about my health, but do nothing to make me feel better. Whether I am at 69 to a dollar (it's not such a nice position, this 69, you see) or a chest-up 55, you have your ways, unmindful of me. You do anything to get me into your wallet -- and secret accounts -- but you trade me for undeserving favours. You stuff me into the suitcases that build the politician's holiday homes with the same ease as you slip me into the greasy palm of the traffic cop who stops you for drunken driving.
I am no moral police. In fact, those lousy deeds hurt me much less than your unwise borrowings and ridiculous spending. And now, you add insult to my injury. Humour! Is that what you call it when you post on Facebook that Pakistan has stopped producing fake Indian currency notes because the overheads have gone through the roof?
On camel backs when they sent bundles of my body doubles through the Rajasthan deserts, there you were waiting to receive them and circulate them to suck the ink out of me. What has your government done to plug the border along Bangladesh? Or the air routes from the Gulf, Far East and Sri Lanka that my duplicates take? If you think it's humour, I should say you have a very funny sense of humour.
I heard a bloke suggest that I should tie a rakhi to the US dollar and plead, "Mujhe bachao!" I seriously considered a foreign citizenship, but who wants an Indian rupee abroad? Well, things weren't so bad till a while ago. If you are a senior citizen, you may remember the days when a unit of me got you two bags of rice or three of onions. Well, the lesser spoken about onions the better for us-- I don't want to bring more tears here. If you are in your forties, you may reminisce how you treasured half of me in your knickers pocket for a couple of ice candies at the end of class.
No point talking about better times unless they are ahead. And none including your Prime Minister and your finance minister has a clue of what's ahead. After trying capital controls and burning their fingers, they now say no more of it. Manmohan Singh assures of prudent measures to reduce current account deficit to below US $ 70 billion.
I hope he does that, but I have my doubts. For, when they say buy less gold, you care your left foot -- which among other parts of your body are adorned (pooh!) by the yellow metal. Consume less petrol and diesel, will you? Not till you can resist the temptation to take out that petrol guzzler at home and take the bus to work.
Out of helplessness he would have said it, but Palaniappan Chidambaram made immense sense -- at least to me -- when he promised to allow me find my own place under the dollar sun. Thank you, and leave me alone. I will find my place, wherever that would be.
I am empathetic towards the poor -- they value me more than the wastefully rich among you -- but I can't approve of mindless populism that bleeds me whenever an election is round the corner. Your finance minister thinks nobody else understands economics. I definitely don't, for I am but a pawn in the game. Just one request: Don't put a dagger into my heart and ask me to appreciate.
Yours sadly,
The Indian Rupee
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