Column

The last time I cared about the budget was when they removed some duty on bobby pins. Now though, I have never successfully managed to use a bobby pin (for reasons too complicated for a newspaper, if this was a woman's magazine
I'd have told you), there was something endearing about the finance minister of such a big country worried about something as small as a bobby pin.

It was Manmohan Singh I think, and he smiled with conviction, as he handed the ladies this little gift. Stick-on bindis also made the duty-free grade, and as luck would have it, I don't use those either.

For years, of course, we all followed Nani Palkhivala's budget analysis — as important as the finance minister's budget speech (for many of those years, there were no pink papers so he was not called a fin min, like a character out of Finding Nemo). We needed the great man to interpret it for us. Every venue he spoke at was packed.

I remember the Brabourne stadium where, in pin-drop silence, some 30,000 people heard the great man rip the budget to bits with sharp wit, clinical precision and severe scorn. We loved it, we clapped and cheered. This was a man who was telling the government what it should do.

Somewhere along the line, the government started listening. I think it was this PM, while he was reducing duties on bobby pins, bindis (and safety pins was it?). So at his last budget speech in 1994, at that packed Brabourne stadium Palkhivala decided that perhaps liberalisation had made his analysis redundant. I stopped bothering too.

In any case, I think we've had the same fin min for years now. In between there were others, but this min was in the fin before them as well. Figure that out yourself; I can't be bothered.

But yay, less income tax for me and some populist goodies for others. The bigger problem is will I be able to negotiate the traffic on the roads because of the chief minister's son's wedding.

From what I read in the papers, all roads in Mumbai will be closed to traffic so the 10,000 invited VIPs (who else?) can make it to the Turf Club venue. The menu we will learn about tomorrow and you may care as little as I do about bobby pins, but you will find out anyway.

b_ranjona@dnaindia.net