To Rep? Or Not to Rep?

 

An entirely Tongue in Cheek Take, BUT true to life, honestly….

"On RBI, Repo rate & Reverse Repo":

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What had been at most a curiosity item has been freshly brought back to the centrestage by the  RBI's somewhat unexpected policy decision to raise the Repo rate this month. However, this note was penned much before that, around 2019.

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Here is the English version, followed by the Bengali original

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Online Teaching is ruling the roost everywhere nowadays. Remembered a rather amusing anecdote in this context. Not an apocryphal “story”, mind you, this is a real incident 😊 😊!

So, here goes.

While searching through YouTube for some video lectures on Monetary Policy at the Undergraduate level some four months back, I chanced upon an impressively energetic young tutor explaining the operations of the RBI to a group of (probably UPSC) candidates.

(You will have to excuse the efforts at reproducing the Hindi , 16 years of living in Gujarat has not helped my rather poor language skills ☹)

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Tutor: Toh friends, Aiye aur ek baar phir dekh lete …  Repo rate kisko bolte hain?

(Indistinct mumbling)

Tutor: Sorry young man, aap abhi bhi thoRasa confused rah giya… Acchha, iye batao… … Reverse Repo rate keya hain?

(Complete silence).

The “irrepressable” Tutor: Accha chalo, ek example le lete hain. Acchha iye batao … “Repo” word-se kis cheez ka iyad aate hain? Reputation! Reputation, right? Acchha, toh…. “Reputation”-ka matlab keya hain?

(Complete silence, again)।

Tutor -- Reputation ka matlab hain izzat, Friends, izzat! toh ab iye batao, kiska izzat jyada hain, RBI ka, iya chhota mota dusra banks-ka?

Hearty chorus: RBI-ka, Sir!!

Tutor – Very good. Acchha. Ab iye batao, , kis kaam mein izzat jyada hyain, loan lene mein, iya phir loan dene mein?

(Chorus): Loan dene mein, Sir!

Tutor --Yes!! Excellent!! Toh, ab dekho। RBI-ne, banks-ko, jis rate pe loan dete hain, usko Repo rate bolte hain. Iyaad rakhna Friends…. Repo rate, iyani reputation, Okay? aur RBI ne jab Banks se loan lete hain, woh hoga reverse repo rate। Right?

(Lusty agreement from the students).

Bemused at the mind-numbing “definition”, I shared the video with Sambuddha। His take? …. “YES!! THIS IS IT!! This explains why students flee in droves from YOUR classes, and fall over themselves to attend this young man’s lectures!! Arre Yaar, if you WANT to attract students to class, you too have to make up such “Reputation-wala” stories!! Otherwise? No hopes, NONE!!!”

So …. Ever since, I have been in the hunt for “stories” … … The sort of stories that can attract the student population to class, at least some times!!Friends, do let me know if you happen to chance upon such a story!!!

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Online Teaching-এর দাপট এখন সর্বত্র। সে দিন এই নিয়ে কথা প্রসঙ্গে একটা মজার ঘটনা মনে পড়ে গেল। এটা কিন্তু গল্প নয়, ঘটনাই!

বলি তাহলে?

কিছুদিন আগে, YouTube-এ Monetary Policy-র ওপরে Undergraduate স্তরে video lecture-এর খোঁজ করছিলাম। দেখি এক টগবগে যুবক ভীষণরকম energetically, সম্ভবত UPSC পরীক্ষার্থীদেরকে, RBI-র ক্রিয়াকলাপ বোঝাচ্ছে। সেটা কি রকম?

(ইয়ে, হিন্দি-টা মাফ করে দিতে হবে—১৬ বছর প্রবাসে থেকেও অবস্থা শোচনীয়ই রয়ে গেছে)

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শিক্ষকঃ তো friends, আইয়ে অওর একবার ফির দেখ লেতে …  Repo rate কিসকো বোলতে হ্যাঁয়?

(অস্পষ্ট বিড়বিড়)

শিক্ষকঃ Sorry young man, আপ আভি ভি থোড়া confused রহ গিয়া… আচ্ছা ইয়ে বতাও… Reverse Repo rate কেয়া হ্যাঁয়?

(সাড়া শব্দ নেই)।

শিক্ষকঃ আচ্ছা চলো, এক example লে লেতে। আচ্ছা ইয়ে বতাও, “Repo” word-সে কিস চিজ কা ইয়াদ আতে হ্যাঁয়? Reputation! Reputation, right? আচ্ছা অব ইয়ে বতাও, “Reputation”-কা মতলব কেয়া হ্যায়?

(সাড়া শব্দ নেই)।

শিক্ষকঃ -- Reputation কা মতলব হ্যাঁয় ইজ্জত, Friends, ইজ্জত! তো অব বতাইয়ে, কিসকা ইজ্জত জাদা হ্যাঁয়, RBI কা, ইয়া ছোটা মোটা দুসরা banks-কা?

সমস্বরে উত্তরঃ আর বি আই কা, সার!!

শিক্ষকঃ --আচ্ছা। অব বতাও, কিস কামমে ইজ্জত জাদা হ্যাঁয়, loan লেনে মে ইয়া loan দেনে মে?

(Chorus): Loan দেনে মে, সার!

শিক্ষকঃ --Yes!! তো, আব দেখো। RBI-নে banks-কো জিস রেট পে লোন দেতে হ্যাঁয়, উসকো Repo rate বোলতে হ্যাঁয়। ইয়াদ রাখনা—Repo rate, ইয়ানি Reputation, ওকে? অর Banks সে RBI নে যব লোন লেতে হ্যায়, ও হোগা reverse repo rate। Right?

ছাত্রকুলের সোৎসাহ সমর্থনে বোঝা গেল ব্যাখ্যাটি তাদের বেশ মনে ধরেছে।

এই অপরূপ সংজ্ঞা শুনে হাসব কি কাঁদব ভেবে না পেয়ে সম্বুদ্ধকে (যে কিনা অর্থ বা অনর্থ কোনো নীতির-ই ধার ধারে না) ডেকে এটি শোনালাম। বললঃ “এই তো!! This explains why তোমার ক্লাসে ছাত্র-রা দল বেঁধে পালায়, আর এই ছেলের ক্লাসে পিলপিল করে ভীড় করে! ক্লাসে ছাত্রদের আনতে চাইলে তোমাকেও ওই রকম Reputation-ওয়ালা গল্প বানাতে হবে, বুঝলে? নইলে কিছু হবার নয়!”

সেই থেকে “গল্পের” খোঁজে আছি … … যেরকম গল্প শোনাতে পারলে ছাত্রসম্প্রদায় ক্লাসে মাঝে সাঝে দেখা দিলেও দিতে পারে! বন্ধুরা যদি সন্ধান দিতে পার তো জানিয়ো।

 

Originally posted in 2018 

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Sharing with you some impressions on "Slowly Down the Ganges" by Eric Newby (pub 1966, 1983).

Not "new" by any stretch of imagination, unfortunately.

Years ago, I had happened purely by chance to locate a slim volume, “Slowly Down the Ganges” at a Baroda bookstore. Narrated by Eric Newby and a classic in its own right among travelogues, this was the 1983 Picador (Pan Books) edition, the first edition having been brought out in 1966 by Hodder and Stoughton. 

Newby and his wife Wanda (his “fellow boatwoman” to use Newby’s own endearing epithet), undertook an arduous “twelve-hundred-mile journey down the Ganges from the place where it enters the Plains of India to the Sandheads, forty miles offshore in the Bay of Bengal, made by two Europeans in the winter of 1963-4”, to cite the elegant introduction to the edition at hand.

I have long wanted to share with sympathetic friends the absolute gems scattered throughout Newby’s extraordinary account, glittering with humour and wit, with some impatience, yes, but a great deal of humorous tolerance, too, towards a difficult terrain and even more difficult communication problems (verbal as well as logistic).

The irreverence (too cynic sometimes?) of the Englishman is only too apparent, but, to be fair, there is a lot of compassion and unstinted tribute to human kindness, too. And all throughout the volume, the grandeur and majesty of the mighty Ganges herself is palpable.

A small nugget of humour, then:

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Around the beginning of the journey “Through the Bhabar”, below Hardwar, the Newbys settled to rest for the day on the river-bank after another arduous leg of boating. Let us hear the rest in Newby's own words:

“A fish leapt in the river and sank once again with a dull plop. Bhosla was supposed to be the expert on fishes, but as he was not a forthcoming sort of man the process of finding out what sort of fish it was was (sic) a tedious one.

“Mauli Hai?”

“Nahin!”

“Kotha Hai?”

“Nahin!”

“Rahu Hai? Tengena Hai? Lachi Hai? Saunl Hai? Gaunch Hai?”

“Nahin! Nahin! Nahin! Nahin! Nahin!”

“Blast! Bam Hai?”

“Hai!!”

“Elephants come here in the rains”, Karam Chand said helpfully, sensing my exasperation.

 

The same spot, the same traveller, on the same bridge.

On the Mozart Bridge in Salzburg.

Only, three decades have passed in between. Between May 1994 and May 2016.

A lot of water has flown through the Salzach over these long, long years,

And the traveller, no longer the young man of 1994, has also flown along with his own, eventful life.

What thoughts must he have been thinking as he stood on that same bridge, at the same spot, nearly 30 years later, revisiting all the golden memories of his carefree youth?

I am not sure …              … only, I am now convinced that if you can make yourself want something with forceful passion--- you are going to achieve it.

To me, the moment seems historic.