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Opinion

Killing us softly

The last 18 months have been tough in terms of rising fuel and LPG prices. We got a break for a month. Now it is back, betraying the callousness with which the average Indian is being rebuked

Killing us softly
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Abou Ben Adhem awoke one

night from a deep dream of

peace and saw an Angel

writing in a book of gold…

The Angel wrote, and vanished.

– Leigh Hunt (abridged)

I have mercilessly condensed the beautiful couplet above, penned by Leigh Hunt in 1834, an illustrious muse who still strikes a chord in me nearly 300 years later. Somehow, this little poem had a profound impact on me, and I have lived by Ben Adhem's esoteric dictum – "Do good to others and the Angels shall take care of you." Quite frankly, it has worked for me for five decades of my life and I count and bless my stars each day.

As I did yesterday, when I went to the petrol station and went 'Yeeaaaahhhh'. That was my exuberant exclamation as I filled up fuel in my diesel and petrol cars in the week gone by, back-to-back. The price was the same as it had been a month back. 'Yeeaaaahhhh' indeed, for this has been unheard of in recent times. I prayed that my 'annadaatas' would continue to protect me and my ilk, aiding us at the height of an ever-worsening economic and personal financial crisis.

In the evening, I put on the TV. It was 'dabba gol' (back to misery) again, as LPG (Liquefied Petroleum Gas) cylinders had mirthlessly seen another price hike of Rs 25 for the domestic category. Bluntly speaking, I understand that my countrymen and I are not being spared any pain anymore; we are being killed softly. And what decides the expiration of our temporary reprieve is the direction of blowing winds, or the polite fanning of the ongoing political breeze.

You want numbers to justify this, don't you? So here goes. Let me put on the mathematical wig, and chew a controversial twig.

Let's look like Einstein

I am trying to look like him, but I find myself falling way short of matching up to even a pale mockery of the great man. Here's the Math, though, that of today and the last few months, one that has seen LPG cylinders being wiped off the kitchens of those that need it the most, our 'Ujjwalas' who have since returned to kindle-wood and 'upalas', shunning whatever fossil fuels we have left on this fast-being-depleted planet.

Numbers, you said, so here you are (we are only talking LPG prices, for now). On December 1, 2020, prices were hiked by Rs 50 to Rs 644 (from Rs 594 earlier) for a domestic 14.4 kg LPG cylinder. A fortnight later, on December 15, 2020, prices were increased by another Rs 50, to Rs 694. India was given a respite for a mite, till February 4, 2021, when another quarter of a century of rupees was added to the LPG price, taking the total to Rs 719. Two weeks later, after a rapidly-ageing me raised my hopes to fulfill my still better half's Valentine's Day wish for a diamond ring, LPG prices were increased by Rs 50, taking the number to a bashing Rs 769 per cylinder. Ten days later, on February 25, 2021, when I thought of buying a rose to make up for the diamond ring I could no longer afford, the price was increased by Rs 25, taking it up to Rs 794.

Cometh the bludgeon

On March 1, 2021, the Gods continued with their lack of piety, only displaying scorn and mirth, inflicting another blow of Rs 25, pushing the LPG asking price to Rs 819. Mercifully, though, on All Fool's Day, April 1, 2021, we got a bumper prize when LPG prices were reduced by Rs 10. Yeeaaaahhhh, I thought again, and the diamond ring was suddenly within reach, as LPG costs fell to Rs 809.

But on July 1, 2021, as all of us heaved a sigh of relief on the passing of the Second Wave, we were confronted in a less-than-sanguine number – another Rs 25.50 extra – taking the diamond ring away from my domestic peace and the asking price to Rs 834.50. The battle went on. And it hit home in the week gone by, when prices were increased by Rs 25, taking the bumper price to Rs 859.50.

My diamond ring aspirations are now down the tube. That's okay, but not for the millions of Indians who have had to revert to type, discarding their freebie gas stoves and paperweight empty cylinders, rushing to the woods and shrubs to find kindle and saplings to keep home and hearth going. Children and chauvinistic husbands have to be fed, right? That is our India. Perhaps not you and I, but our Gods need to understand the impact of a fall from grace that the ladies of our country are facing, being made to eat humble pie as their new-found luxury of a gas cylinder has slithered woefully south.

For people needing clarity on this perplexity, here's yet another number. When crude oil and gas prices were at all-time highs, on March 1, 2014, we were paying Rs 410.50 per LPG cylinder.

Juhi: Chawla or Singh?

This is not about a humble LPG cylinder; or petrol and diesel. The bigger picture is more worrisome. On a week-day debate on a 'friendly' television channel (we have few of those left anyway), a spokesperson for the ruling party called the counterpart from another party 'Juhi Chawla', once part of India's winning beauty pageant and a prominent Bollywood actress. Our ruling party gentleman got the first name right and waxed eloquent about how he got the second wrong. He was embarrassed beyond words, red in the face – that is food for thought. For the panelist grating brains with him was Juhi Singh. We need to be dead-red in our words and causes, indeed, if we claim to be leaders of any stature. The beauty of this particular situation was that despite the miserable mistake, the flagellating opposition was forgiving and moved on without undue or unreasonable adjectives.

And thus moves on an elected Government and our largest democracy. But at what cost and for how long? At last count, we have 3.5 crore educated unemployed Indians living in our metropolises, with EMIs and bills to pay. We have 23 crore people pushed below the poverty line in the last three months. Where are we headed is anybody's guess… Here's mine.

Nowhere good

Dismal times call for decisive measures, especially from those in positions of authority. And when the powerful are less-than-bohemian, there's cause for worry. Today, we have a worrying situation. We don't need mirth or political menopause. We need decisiveness, constructive verbiage and less-than-mute acceptance and a fallacy of the chosen ideals. We still have the ability to resurface from the 'pundubbi' we find ourselves afloat on for a bit, but only if we find the moral courage to follow a new-found path, rather than wave to non-existent expanses in the mountains of a very differently manifested country.

It is time to be different, to be brave. We can be, provided we don't talk about historical figures who came from a rather long lineage and went away inside small, mutilated aircrafts. I don't know who is right or who is wrong. What I do know is that my fellowman is suffering. And unless I help him today, I stand to lose my basic Indian-ness. If that happens, I would have metamorphosed and become part of the same bucolic system.

I would rather retire, and this time for good.

The writer is a communications consultant and a clinical analyst. narayanrajeev2006@gmail.com. Views expressed are personal

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