How Demonetisation Affects Country’s 17 Lakh-Crore Food and Agriculture Market

On November 8^th 2016, Prime Minister Narendra Modi called for a move that stumped the nation and paralyzed the country’s biggest currency denominations – the Rs. 500 and Rs. 1000 notes. As India’s largest currency bills were shown the exit door, its consequences bore discomfort for people from all walks of life. An estimated 86% of the notes in circulation went invalid in a matter of seconds. Panic assumed character in large number of people queuing up at petrol pumps to get rid of their soon-to-be-worthless big bucks. The following days saw hundreds piling up in front of banks and ATMs, either to exchange and deposit their money, or to withdraw some to meet their daily expenses. Those with smooth access to the online payment modes managed to survive the manic first week; others had no choice but to line up in never-ending queues. As disappointment and desperation reached a crescendo, many wondered if the move will eventually usher in a wave of change, wiping out the filth of black money.

Undeniably, millions with no bank account or personal identification have been hit the worst. For this lot, the likes of the daily wage earners, every failed attempt at getting money from the bank results into no food or basic necessities for the day. Small traders and businesses that dealt majorly in cash took the hit too. The local sabzi walahs and dhaba guys also frowned and grimaced owing to the plummeting sales.

Demonetisation has had a definite strike on various sectors of the economy. The 17 lakh-crore food and agriculture market in the country and the lives of many farmers have been affected in a multitude of ways. The FMCG (fast moving consumer goods) sector is likely to record a massive sales drop in months to come, an estimated “15-20% dip in the top-line for food companies in the third quarter,” opined Varun Berry, Managing Director of Britannia in an interview with Business Standard. Ex Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh said today in the parliament that the GDP could be hit as much as 2% overall.  

Most consumers are avoiding cash transactions while others have none to dispense. Commodities remain stacked up in stores causing disruption in the supply-chain mechanism. The overall productivity across platforms and sectors is suffering as a result of people queuing up for long hours.  

Reportedly, local stores as well as wholesale markets across the country are facing a severe slump in demand. There is an 80% lull in the regional vegetable and fruit markets. As customers fail to shop frequently, the risk of fresh produce getting wasted looms high over a local vendor’s head, in turn they place lower orders for the new stock. The problem of payment becomes a greater signifier of trouble as vendors find it difficult to pay their suppliers. Most produce is either stuck in-transit due to cost issues or owing to truck drivers who refuse to work in a cash-crunched environment. 

Business at Delhi’s massive Azadpur market is at a standstill. The market is empty while vendors are witnessing unimaginable losses. An individual’s daily business of close to Rs.1000 has shrunk down to couple of hundreds a day. There are days when there is no work at all. Some are even accepting old currency notes with a hope to exchange them and get a way to support their livelihood. “Nothing is going on here. Our suppliers have stopped buying. So, we are not getting any produce. What are we going to sell to our customers? Our investments are stuck. The new currency bills are not easily available," Sanjay, a local sweet lime seller told the Associated Press.

And, it goes in a full circle, disturbing the synchrony of the entire chain of production-supply-demand.

Thousands and hundreds of daily wage earners and workers are facing a severe crisis. Many have not even received last month’s salary. Farmers are facing a double whammy as the buyers of the newly harvested monsoon (kharif) crop are either offering old currency or credit transactions. On the other hand, there is just no money for some farmers to buy the essentials for sowing the winter (rabi) crop as some of the state-led cooperatives, federations, and Primary Agricultural Credit Societies (PACS) brave the brunt of cash-crunch.

The participants in the local supply chain have traditionally depended on cash and are now facing a crippling situation on being unable to use their existing currency. This gets teamed with an inability to get quicker cash inflow from banks or from the reluctant, wary consumer. Local vendors who rely solely on perishable produce trucked from far-off areas are facing the brunt of the situation, those with buffer stocks of grains and millets fear an imminent run-out. “Rural recovery will take much longer time than we expect,” opined Varun Berry in one of his recent interviews.

Chief Marketing Officer, National Commodity and Derivatives Exchange (NCDEX) Nidhi Nath Srinivas talks of myriad ways in which the real-time adversity can be mitigated and the wave of unnecessary panic be therefore put to rest. In her blog, she shares some interesting views and renders a completely new perspective to the current situation. She talks of instances and areas in the country where farmers have lately been open to accepting cheques, for example, “Maize farmers in Nabrangpur, Odisha's poorest district, and coconut farmers in Karnataka took cheques from state agencies. The list is growing,” she writes. A farmer can keep his stock in “modern warehouses” and can even claim a loan against it. As most parts of the Indian economy work on cash, many don’t have internet access and millions function without a bank account, these are nothing but, “symptoms of the crying need for reform,” she notes.

Demonetisation can safely be termed a missile of great proportions aimed at an even bigger issue – black money – the aftermath of which can be taken as a learning by the government to strengthen existing loopholes and fissures. Electronic payments should be encouraged across the country, banking facilities must be made accessible and mandatory for one and all; ‘cash only’ should be a thing of the past. It is a “perfect opportunity to prise open closed minds and introduce new payment habits in this otherwise opaque part of the economy,” concluded Srinivas.

Hunger

They call me a hungry man,   
I'm not to blame   
all I knew was hunger   
and satiation sans shame.
   
I was taking shape   
in my mother's belly   
She ate so little,   
Oh, so poorly!   
I was way too little; 
when she begot me
   a malnurished child   
with veins running green and blue,   
on a body so pale in hue.   

Day in and day out   
I shrieked and I did shout   
for bread, drink, food and milk,   
when others of my age   
rolled in garbs of silk,   
I stood in rags and tatters   
-an ugly looking scarecrow.   
   
   
They call me a hungry man,   
when I'm not to blame   
right from the start,   
I knew nothing of shame   
and once my mother died   
I neither sulked nor cried   
I saw her getting buried   
under sheets of snow   
and I became an uglier scarecrow.   
   
   
I used to sit still,   
timid like a sheep   
in garbage cans i put my hands
elbow deep.   
I sniffed for the leftovers
I searched for dry crumbs   
when deep in my stomach   
my hunger beat wild drums,   
then nothing made sense   
nobody came in my way   
and like a savage animal   
I snatched a dog's bone away!   
   
   
She says I'm a hungry man,   
woe! to my lustful appetite,   
it's my insatiable hunger   
which I could never fight.   

Was I ever to blame?   
and it's all still the same,   
from one womb to another   
my hunger knows nothing   
but to smother   
and never did I bother,   
to resist or control   
until I'm satisfied,   
I want more and more.   
   
   

Of candy floss and trumpet toys.

In every real man, a child is hidden that wants to play. -Friedrich Nietzsche

During these two months at the Media Institute, I was relentlessly reminded of the growing responsibilities as well as the simple, carefree childhood days that are left behind forever.

I wouldn't shrink away from accepting the fact that I have a child hidden inside me. There are moments when my inner child would feel so trapped that it would try peeping out into the world that my mature self now inhabits. This time I shall talk about a certain day when my cluttering reality of newspapers, empty coffee cups and cigarette stubs was transported into the world of candy floss and trumpet toys.

The other day my friends and I decided to go to C.R Park to see the Durga Pujo Pandals. I have always loved the hustle- bustle that surrounds the city during the festive season. As soon as we started walking to the nearest Pandal, the child in me got excited. Just as a child feels incapable to grasp the entirety of the vastness around him, I was then amazed by the multitudinous crowd, the vast Pandals and the vibrant glimmering lights. I spotted a man who was selling balloons and toys; I stood in front of that vendor, marveling at the collection of tiny little goodies that he was carrying with him.

That day the child in me was sad, with eyes wide open and filled with ocean of despair it greedily looked at those colorful bundles of goodies. I finally decided to treat the little child, the child that would never step out of the cage that my twenty two year old being was. With apprehensiveness lurking deep inside and anxiety brimming my mind, I walked towards the toy vendor and asked how much the toy would cost me, “Twenty rupees”, he replied. I elbowed deep into my hand bag, took out my wallet and handed him a crisp twenty rupee note while he handed me my toy. I stood there for a while clutching the little toy in my hand, completely oblivious of my friends who were calling me from behind. I was reminded of those childhood days when I would ask my father to lift me up in his arms and carry me around, while I would munch on candies and blow wild my trumpet toy to ecstasy.  

Such were those days when candy floss, balloons and the cacophonic trumpet toys were among my all time favorites and the priceless, innocent rapture that was experienced was free of cost. Today, I had to sheepishly shell out twenty bucks to relive those moments again, what an irony! We all have a child hidden behind the garb of a mature human; we suppress it, often deny its existence completely.

Listen to the voice

deep inside

It’s the inner child

Let it run wild

Let it loose, let it stray

Let the fit of madness stay

To make some sense

of the world around

the world that goes

round and round! 

Untitled

At night we lay together 
feeling the warm whiff 
of each other's breath 
and a gap kept whirling between us. 
  
We kept on looking at each other 
exchanging pensive, 
placid, passionate glances. 
  
  
Your eyes demanded and 
mine were just inquisitive 
of the desire that swelled your chest. 
  
Your eyes explored, 
like a hungry traveller 
they measured my voluptuous contours, 
while you kept on braving 
the storm 
of passion 
that quickened 
your heart and 
like a ship that tosses 
amidst the turbulent waves 
  
I gave in and 
I wrecked in your arms

A story..unfinished, untitled!

‘Angry waves, beating against the shores, in agitation and repulsion, they carry with them a fierce sense of destruction!’

 Vamika stood by the side of an old wooden rocking chair, bending towards one of the sides of the window, she kept on staring at the magnificent scene that lay stretched in front of her beautiful oriental eyes.  The blazing sun, shining and reflecting its power over the sparkling green water of the sea, the huge stretch of golden sand with palm trees around, and a bunch of local kids playing at a distant, “How pleasant all of it seems,” thought Vamika, “how perfect can this life get? Its like living in God’s own personal paradise, Oh! I desire nothing more, but how totally ecstatic all this bliss could have been, had it been just him and I, together, forever, only if the love was to be realized, only if this paradise was not devoid of the passionate, crimsoned streaks of love; this would only have been better than the Eden itself.” And while such thoughts crossed her mind, a sparkling drop of tear trickled down her flushed cheek, it stopped for a while at the beautiful meandering protrusion of her pink lips and finally slipped down to her little chin. “I will not think about him anymore, it adds to my misery, Oh! Was I ever so miserable before? No, and I shan't be anymore!” and thinking this, she took a deep breath, wiped away her tears, took a scarf that lay beside her and walked out of the front door.

As she went out and exposed herself to the brightness of the sun, her smooth skin glistened and glowed, her honey colored eyes looked wild and exotic , her light auburn twirling curls were loosely tied in a bun and rebelled to fall on her ivory white shoulders. Vamika kept strolling near the sea shore, observing her surroundings and curiously watching the tourists who were happily basking in the sun, all this amused her and there her pink lips twirled into a half smile. After a while she sat beneath a palm tree, the heat and the humidity had exhausted her. Vamika sat reclining against the bark of a palm tree, she took off her scarf and let her hair fall, the sweet scent of jasmine in the air, the subtle chirping of birds around her and the vast expanse of sea in front of her made her subsume in a trance like state, she then, let her tiny feet sink into the hot, golden sand and closed her eyes for a while....

                                                                                ....to be continued!

Vagabond Love

Mad, insane, young love;

 When the youth is  ripe and stuck on the head, Her askance look to the opposite sex, and getting a strange glance back from Him. The vibrations that are created in the fragile body, when the hot and ripe male gaze touches her body for the first time, fiddling and fondling with her most tender areas, being inquisitive of that which lay underneath those piles of delicate frills and laces; and then the shying away, the sudden imbalance in the ever balanced hormones and eventually , follows the idea to approach the unavoidable.

It starts with exchanging shy and nervous glances, talking hesitatingly, and then the breaking away of that reluctance by first taking her hand firmly into his, Oh! How she shivers and draws her steps back, but then the maddening serpent, that riseth from below, it taketh its toll over reason. Finally, it gives way to the event when he catches hold of her, envelopes her greedily in his arms, and that maddening fit, which leaves one wanting and lusting for the taste of the skin of the other; when lips meet another of their kind, and they relish the taste of that which they had never known before- the taste, the touch, the scent of another human, but of the opposite sex.

They no more belong to that naïve club of kids, rather the consumer of a partial ‘original sin’. The lad, drunk in his surmounting youth, listens to no one, he pays no heed to the rituals of this rigid world, he is either mad in his game, or an insane rock star who beholds nothing but her muse in front of him; and She, on the other hand, is the one who is an absolute sharer in his very act and every deed, she is swollen with pride of her beauty and of her possession of HIM , yes, she possesses him and he is mad after her, like she had some magic spell casted on him. 

Together they wander amidst the wilderness, away from the civilization who would bind them in the shackles of orthodoxy, they are like the vagabonds, dancing to the drum beats of the Goan rave parties, soaking their feet together in the hot, golden sand of the beach, climbing mountains together and challenging the wild river with the oars of their love. They feel they have the ultimate and the absolute power to challenge the world, and that together, the two of them are sufficient to exist, enough for each other. It’s this realization that makes them go stronger and stronger everyday, along with them going madder and even madder; the two agile and mutually hungry bodies, thrust everything apart that hinders the union of the two and then like some primitive, savage yet graceful Adam and Eve, they make love. Her wanting more of him, with every second and every minute and him giving every bit of himself to her, they go on and on and on till the end of the time, the scratches of her wild nails on his back, how she buries her head, her little pink mouth in his chest; how he takes her in his arms, loves her, fills her totality with all that his masculinity could offer, and then, eventually she floods.

And she follows him, wherever he goes, whatever he does, he captures her moves and curves in his lenses, she keeps him tight in her heart, they grow older and more mature with the passage of time, yet they remain like some quintessential vagabonds, in the search of new dimensions of their love.

She remained that cat

“Shasha Fierce”

magnetic eyes

drunk with the liquor

mature and voluptuous

youth and passion.

She remained that queen

who reigned on him

and he remained that horse

swift and agile

powerful were his moves

and his rhythmic strokes

that maddened her

and brought her to his feet.

And they remained like vagabonds

beholding subliminal scenes

everyday and every night

A crazy lad and a love sick wench

together, they braved the sun

right into His eyes

Oh! They braved the world

They braved the world!

when he stroked

and she whirled!

Girl

Whom do you think 
Is an uptown girl? 
The one with a perfect smile 
Or the one loaded with pearls? 
Should she be a pure beauty 
Or a lady poised and smart? 
Oh! how can you judge her 
Without listening to her heart? 

What do you expect 
out of your uptown girl? 
To guard her precious chastity 
Or to swing it loose in a whirl? 
What is in to classify her 
On grounds, feeble and lame? 
Its true that disrespecting her 
Can bring you doom and shame. 

Oh! why do you hope 
That your uptown chick, 
is there to worship you 
and to give your boots a lick? 
Why do you think 
she has no feelings and no heart 
and that in this wide world, 
she's got to play no part? 

And if she's not an uptown 
but a plain and simple country dame, 
Would you then mock her simplicity, 
causing her misery, hurt and shame? 
How simply can you disown her 
Shaking her off, like a withered feather? 
Leaving her all hapless and alone 
Out to fight the turbulent weather. 

A girl is just a girl, 
whether country or uptown, 
she keeps all her secrets buried, 
lying unsaid deep and down. 
Love her, you feel her 
deep in your body, flesh and veins 
And her love is build upon 
nothing that is profane, 
if you want to win her 
then let your spirit touch her soul 
and thou shall finally behold her, 
getting one with you as a whole!

Who Am I?

While I stood in front of a mirror, The figure that I beheld, asked me then, "What is it that you see in here?" To which I responded, "I see the one, Who is confident of her desires, Who knows how to distinguish, Between an inferno and a fire." I'm the one, Whom I see in there, A nobody in a lump of nothingness, Or a force prevailing everywhere. I can be everything that you want, I can be anything that will haunt, I make love to the one I love, Fierce as an eagle, and mild as a dove, I’m the whiteness of Peace and Solitude, I’m the redness of Love and Fortitude, I'm the vibrancy of every possible hue.   In me, you’d find darkness, savage and black, A bunch of evilness with some goodness that I lack. I might be a girl, a fun loving female, A devoted Hindu, whose piety will never fail, Call me a wheat-skinned, a Hindustani or an Asian, I’m simply a passionate, patriotic Indian. I’m different, I’m unique, and I’m non-pareil, I’m all that you don’t expect, Hiding underneath a veil, I’m like a bright day and a night that would appall, A hater of none, but a lover to all, I’m a void that is complete in its whole, A child, a lover, a human and a soul.

'tis maddening Love..!

We fight, And I’m so sick of this fighting, Hair tearing, screaming and crying, You hang up; I get weary of calling, On your cell phone, Again and again and yet again, Followed by those long, Sleepless nights. You’d never patch up, I crawl back to you, drenched in sobs, But this time, it had its extremes, When the tears were choked, And couldn’t flow like, The undeterred Ganges, I knew I couldn’t just yell at you, It would’ve taken a lot of courage, This time you hung up, And switched it off, My heart skipped a beat, My reason battled, to choose between, What could’ve been and what should’ve been, done then. I knew, that my love for you, Was at its strongest, Why did you doubt it then? Failing to understand any of these, I chose to go through the trial, To reaffirm,that I was yours, And that nobody else could, Ever conquer me, So I caught hold of a blade, And chose the most tender of all parts, And there I started carving out your name, Tender and soft, very near to my heart. Never did I imagine, myself to be, a masochist, But there was I, already becoming one, My hands, they trembled, As I tried to make gashes, On my own bare bosom, With every cut I cried out your name, And so did the red hot drops, That ran down my skin, It all went numb, and I felt nothing, With my eyes tightly shut, I beheld nothing but your face, With my hands only quickening, To execute, what I had never thought before, And then, there was pain, Excruciating, piercing, hurting, Finally, I opened my eyes, To look down at the trails of gore, But why then, did I want it even more? I found something ecstatic about it, Your crimsoned name in blood, Shone clearly against my pale skin, And the wounds could only cry out, “Beware! beware! For 'tis love, ‘tis love insane, at its maddening end.”

Her anathema

A troubled soul was she striving hard to come to terms with the murky times in which she existed the vile and wicked ways of those around disturbed her.   She sat motionless like a zombie Pale and cold Like the contemplating, placid and brooding   Obscurest bird of the darkest hour -an owl Or, like an irritated, blood thirsty Ugliest, meanest and the sinister most nocturnal creature of all -a bat     She thought she was becoming less of a human, bordering more on the savage side, plagued by a distinct kind of cannibalism that killed no human, but the very core called humanity.   Was it the world that had trespassed   all possible limits of sanity and rationality? Or, was it her who was not the right fit to the boggling puzzle called, Ghor Kalyuga:The twenty first century modern world, an era devoid of love and reason, Sans brotherhood, sans harmony, With a God nearly dead, and   festering, decaying humanity   She felt out of place A total misfit, a maladjusted, mentally molested moron in a mass of land where mindless men crawled   like hideous maggots.   For her,‘twas anachronism, A phenomenon that   took its  real shape in front of her striking her hard right in the face Breaking her teeth, making reality hard for her to chew, swallow and gulp down her throat.   She sat there cold under the light that refused to shine, that quivered, flickered and fluttered, teased her, it betrayed and vexed her. She locked herself   in a sado-masochistic room the dampness on the roof and on the walls the plaster that did crumple and fall the room stripped itself bare peeled its skin showing nude the dark, hollow, damp marks, they were green, black and brown, full of moss and the crumbling pieces   fell on her while she slept waking her up, in a fit of oblivious torpor the dampness of walls got stuck in her mind the foul smell, dark and distinct like burned soot or kohl in the dark brown Indian eyes.   The room haunted her, she couldn’t escape being afraid to gaze out of her dusty window, lest she should see some Gorgon, Moloch or Beelzebub in a guise of a friendly human,   peeping in through her window ready to take away her soul and suck on her life, but Why did the omnipotent and omnipresent darkness  paranoid her then, When the darkness of ignorance that lay within her   swayed and whirled?   Unable to fathom any of these She did what was best suited for her, trying to uncover the glory of God that had faded away in her heart she begged for pardon, she atoned and repented for the minor sins that she had committed she wished for the doomsday the Armageddon, when everything shall be dissolved when those who sinned shall be damned and the rest shall be absolved then, in some divine awe she shut her eyes calling out holy angels’ names, she cried and asked for her only question to be answered,   “What kind of justice is it my God, that only the naive, the poor and the innocent, is destined to struggle, suffer and strive, in this world so cruel and intense? Losing out on sense and love, there's nothing sane that your child can see, Oh! take me in your bosom my Lord, as this world being insane, is at best, an anathema to me!!”

The cup of deceit

Its bitter to its last dregs, The cup full of deceit, Its like a snail paced death, That makes you embrace your own defeat, Oh! no more do I want to remember, That shallow honesty in your eyes, Leaving love all bruised, Its flame that silently dies, You wanna know the pain, Then rip open my heart, You'll get to know the intensity, With which I played my part.

Bygones..

Midnight sleeplessness 
Mind brewing with thoughts 
Oh! such thoughts are they 
they should be in control! 

A sepia tinted picture 
of someone endeared 
yet estranged to me now 
And with every gaze 
how the past arose 
in front of my naked eyes 
blinding me to the reality 
and ending like a nightmare 
it shook me, 
shook me to the realization 
that all has been spent 
it has been exhausted, it is gone 
cannot be relived, 
cannot be resurrected 
hence, tear away that picture darling! 
let it go, let it go 
with the swish of gentle wind 
better not cling to it, 
better not suffer... 
oh! will you please let those 
bygones be bygones forever?

Gothic Halo

Trapped and choked to death fuming, intoxicating meth insane love, paranoid mind eyes of reason that went blind She walked on shards of glass for a man of liminal class A wretch with the darkest soul hot veins with burning coal the truth did rip apart the beats with the fractured heart And there were storms and rains tears of sorrow, rivers of pain, But that was the end of all unmasking the real, the curtains did fall Out of the ruins, her spirit did rise Making him repent and pay the price She soared high above while he lay down With much to suffer and to frown At heaven's gate, her aura shone bright Deep down there, he kept shivering in the fright Of being consumed By his own gothic halo!

Rockstar's Lady

I felt disturbed,     when you stared at my body     while I was undressing     and I asked you,     “What is it that you’re looking at my rockstar?”     you came to me from behind     sliding your arms around my waist     you kissed my neck and gave me shivers     and said, “Be the guitar to this rockstar baby, and let me strum it.”     Feeling mischievous, I broke away from you     and stood in front of a mirror,     I admired and took pride     on the beauty that I saw, reflecting in there,     “I will bring you down on your knees,     will make you beg and steal,     If you want a piece of me     you’ve got to win me.”     You gave me an indifferent smirk,     you grabbed your guitar and took off your shirt,     then you played on those strings     and when you fingered its chords,     I felt like a wanton serpent     enchanted by the snake charmer’s melody,     the sound of that electric instrument     went deep inside and moved me,     envious of ‘that’, which you had in your hands,     then, I wished to be tickled likewise     by your beautifully perfect fingers.           I saw you hot and raw     still staring at me, like before,     but this time, with some queer triumph in your eyes     as you knew, that I was to surrender soon,     I crawled my way to you,     Yes, I was down on my knees,     I sat behind you, beholding your shoulders     huge packs of strength, strong as boulders,     but you didn’t give a damn,     You kept on making love to your guitar,     that left me astonished, it was so bizarre     the electric tune was maddening,     I wanted you, on me, with me, within me     so I flipped back my hair     that hurled and danced in the air     my bare bosom against your brawny back     it was cool and dormant     against the hot sweat that your body erupted     and there were steamy vapors all around   of heat and sweat and cigarettes that could be found,     I kissed and licked and smiled and grinned,     I held and hugged with passion fully brimmed,     it was then, when finally     you threw away your passive, electric lady     'twas flesh that had won already,     My rockstar, finally you did turn to me,     You pulled me from behind     and like a speeding airplane     I boisterously crashed into your arms,     your eyes shone bright and you held me tight     you pressed and sucked, you kissed and crushed.           The tinkling of my anklet against your feet,     the whispering of wind outside in the street,     the soft sound that I made in your ears     and the moans and groans, when it was out of our bear,     All night long we loved and there was a symphony     that stood out amidst the silent cacophony     of loneliness and darkness,     of ugliness and madness,     there was I, in my rockstar’s arms     feeling ecstatic then, that I must     and there lay that electric lady       cold and ignored, all alone on dust.