The annual budget presentation!

In India, there is always the next big event. It could be the festival round the corner, the start of IPL or even the Annual Budget presentation.

You wait with bated breath. The media stokes your curiosity by maintaining a countdown to the D-day. The finance minister will arrive with a magic wand. One swish of the wand and your entire world is about to turn golden! Such is the anticipation!

In the days of yore, on the day of the budget, the finance minister strode with a briefcase! It was a mandatory accessory. You wondered how many sheafs of paper lay stuffed, and how long the reading will take.

Times have changed. It is a paperless world now. The briefcase is replaced with a sleek laptop. That apart, the tradition has stayed the same.

A unique aspect of the budget presentation is to make a sudden departure from the reading and drift off to a quotation from a vernacular text. It is like a dose of comic relief, in the middle of a suspense thriller!

As the reading continues, one side greets each sentence with a thumping of the desk! The elation on one side is met with heckling from another. The hecklers claim that the middle-class is taken care, but the farmers are left out. If the farmers’ concerns are addressed, the hecklers feel the salaried class is compromised.

Whatever stance you take, someone has an objection. It is like the Panchatantra story. The father and the son were walking with a donkey. A passerby commented, “Why are you walking with the donkey? Why don’t you put it to use?” It sounded like a good idea and the father rode the donkey. There was another comment now. “Look! The poor boy is walking, while the shameless father rides the donkey!” The point was taken, and the son rode the donkey. This time, the interjection was- “Why is this young fellow riding the donkey, while the aged father walks?” Now, the father and the son together rode the donkey. It brought the final comment, “Do both of you have no sympathy for the poor donkey?”

Much like this story, a perfect budget is an oxymoron.  “Vitandaa vaada” originated here. You will be faulted whatever position you take!

One side hails the budget as “balanced and historic”. The other side sums it up as “disappointing” and “moving coins from one pocket to another”! How can the same data be interpreted in opposite ways? Shouldn’t it be an exact science? Apparently not! It is like a glass of milk filled till the middle. It is entirely up to you- to look at it as a half-full or half-empty!