#TheDailyToast: You do what you do, Raghuram Rajan
Oh Raghu, Raghu, you of the boyish laugh and floppish hair who does what you do... What impact your Santa Clause-ish repo rate has on us Indians sir... And not just on the liquidity of our pockets... Those NRIs to their SAP Center, here even sabziwalas have taken on your mantras. Pink paper sales are rising depending on which photograph of yours they use. In fact, I have it on good authority that staff retrenchment in financial quarters is at its lowest and most "requested to reconsider" when, as is more often than not, the lead picture on financial dailies is yours. The rupee has acquired a sheen, the RBI has dusted off its cobwebs, roadside bhel now comes wrapped in quarterly financial reports and the general bonhomie of entire news teams, nations, banking institutions goes into a pendulum swing at the flutter of a press conference, though they assure us, that that is simply a result of the bankability of the rupee. Yes, sure catfights break out now and then, but let that not mar the um... Your handsome err... mission of putting this country back on its rails and chugging it towards a seat for you in North Block. (The entire Mumbai press corps is, as we speak, putting in a request to transfer to economic reporting out of Delhi in this faith).
There are no silver bullets you've said, but no need to fret sir, the Indian population is very loyal. We will bite the brass ones sir. We are not picky. It comes from the ability to eat dirt in sops, doles and hand outs. Our constitution is hardy. Fire away. We have personally vowed to take on an additional automobile loan for cars we have no roads to drive on, home loans for lands there are no licenses to build on and no running water or increased electricity supply to make habitable, and are equipping even the bathrooms with television sets and air conditioners so that fluorocarbon emissions will heat our air sufficiently to melt the particle density from the extra vehicles we will have purchased when we began this conversation. It is cyclical, this you and I teamwork thing. (Nudge, nudge, wink, wink). As a nation, we must pull together.
Because when you do what you do, we also do what we do. Of course what Arun Jaitley is doing nobody really knows, but then he does not come across as a man with purpose, just a really annoying guy intent on touring the Himalayas in a jalopy with flat tires and, thanks to you now, a tank full of petrol... But this is your generosity sir. This is why the milkman gave me half a litre of milk extra this morning. This is why the sabziwala put two lemons in the bag instead of one for a whole rupee. And this is why the maid expanded her limit for sparkly sheen to two whole vessels this morning. This bonhomie you radiate is infectious. Want 25 basis points? Here take 50, you have said. This backward finesse has put the liquidity on the table. What is Jaitley going to do with it, you're asking?
He is coming sir. He's just praying very hard to the rain gods for policy clearances. Nothing short of a cloudburst.
You do what you do, we love me do.