Column

It was late in the night and the old radio which couldn’t be switched off (because it was old) was playing the 70s show.

The hit song “Baaki jo bachcha mehangai maar gai,” from the 1974 movie Roti Kapda Aur Makaan, was being played, rather representative of the times we live in.

Budgetman Pranab, or BP as he was better known, was flying
over the locality, a pipe dangling from his lips, trying to relax himself after what had been a particularly hard day.

He had presented the budget during the course of the day and had received kudos from all and sundry. His extra sensory ears heard the song, and he immediately changed his direction and flew into the house where the song was playing.

“Ye kya gaana bojata hai tum?” he asked the woman in the kitchen, who was busy preparing dinner for her family.
“Oh BP. Is that you?”
“BP? I am Budgetman Pranab, not BP.”
“Yeah Budgetman Pranab has been shortened to BP. And wherever you go, the BP aka blood pressure of people starts to go up.”
“Okay. Okay. Let’s not get into all that. Why are you playing this song?” BP asked.
“Well. For starters it’s the radio over there that’s playing the song and not me. But if I had a choice, I would have played this song over and over again.”
“Arre ye to bahut purana gaan hai. Koi naya gaan bajao!”
“Arre, what else will I play, with sugar at Rs 50 a kg? And rice at Rs 40 a kg. And dal at Rs 100 kg.
And milk at Rs 30 per litre? Even the cost of cigarettes and tobacco has gone up. I mean you haven’t even spared yourself.”
“Oh. Don’t go on my appearance. I stopped smoking long time back. But I want to be different from other superheroes. So I like to present myself as the pipe-smoking superhero.”
“Ah!”
“Yeah. But why are you cribbing? I have ensured more money in the hands of the taxpayer by widening the tax slabs. At a taxable income level of Rs 4 lakh, you save Rs 10,300 as tax, at Rs 6 lakh you save Rs 30,900 as tax and at Rs 8 lakh you save Rs 51,500 as tax,” said Pranab.
“I have heard all that. The TV channels have shouting that
from the rooftops for the last
three days,” replied the housewife, rather unimpressed.
“I have also given a new tax saving option in the form of long-term infrastructure bonds. You can invest Rs 20,000 in that and save more money. This is over and above the Rs 1 lakh that is already allowed under Section 80C of the Income-Tax Act, where you can invest money in tax-saving instruments like tax-saving mutual funds, public provident fund, life insurance, employees’ provident fund, tax-saving fixed deposits, etc and claim a deduction from your taxable income.”
“Arre, I know all that. But with prices rising at the pace that they have been, I don’t see these tax-savings making a huge difference. You have raised the price of petrol and diesel in the budget. Also at the lower levels of tax slabs taxpayers hardly save anything.”
BP now realised that logic did not always work with housewives. “Let me try something else,” he told himself.
“Now keep your hand on your heart like this,” BP told the woman, at the same time placing his right hand on his heart.
The woman, rather surprised, played on and kept her right hand the same way as BP had and asked “And do what?”
“Sing Aal is well! Aal is well! Like in the movie 3 Idiots.”
“Ah. I will sing that song. But go and first get the other two idiots.”
BP flew out to get the other two idiots, all the time wondering, “Now just who did she think was the
third idiot?”

(The example is hypothetical)