Indian Samurai इंडियन सामुराई

While the world is watching, the other clown becoming president of the United States, the Indian Prime Minister continues with his hobby of banning things. After banning beef meat almost everywhere, porn sites etc., he created the surprise yesterday... by banning 500 and 1000 rupee notes. With immediate effect (well the announcement took place around 8 p.m. and took effect at midnight), it was orchestrated masterfully. Basically, it means that now you can pay cash only with bills of 100 rupees (a little less than €1.5). Knowing that the India is a ‘cash economy’ (almost everything is done in cash) it’s going to be a little tough to adjust.

The intention is laudable though: putting an end to the ‘black economy’, fake currency and corruption. This plan has the merit of being ambitious! Apparently, it was the third (surprise) phase of Modi’s strategy, the first one being to encourage everyone to open a bank account (since August 2014, 254.5 million accounts have been opened, half of them in the rural sector*) and the second one to encourage all those who have black money to come clean**. (In fact the plan had in 8 steps*, I just simplified.)

In any case, this is going to bring up some change!

Here are the next steps summed-up:

And in more details (for instance what can tourists or people living abroad and holding cash can do): RBI_ Your questions answered by the RBI _ What to do with 500 and 1000 notes.pdf - source.

 * Source: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/prime-minister-modi-surgical-strike-on-black-money-government-currency-revamp/1/805904.html

** The black money holders were given a chance from June to September to come clean and declare their assets – and pay taxes on it, with a penalty of 45%. But less than a tenth of the estimated amounts of black money (7 000 billion rupees (about 6% of GDP)) have been disclosed.

Gurgaon, in the post-Diwali cracker induced pollution fog (3 days later and the air is still hardly breathable)

Hyderabad

Bangalore

Our little trip in Europe helped me realize a big quality that Indians have, and it is a very big one: they love children. Which means, practically, that they do not look at you like you are about to commit some crime when you get on a train with your kid (who has not even opened his mouth but is already perceived as a source of trouble).

That they don’t throw nasty comments at you when, in an airport queue, you drop your smoothie trying to prevent your child from running away, and before you even have the time to take out a tissue to clean, “ah wonderful” (I told that old German hag to relax for the love of God).

That they don’t allow you to have dinner in their restaurant only under the condition that the child will remain sited and strapped in his highchair (no need to tell you that I went to another Scottish joint to have my fish & chips that day).

That there is little chances that an Indian hostess comes to tell you, after a one hour flight, that your baby has been “particularly painful” (he just screamed for 10 minutes but that same hostess wouldn't let me get up to distract him, because of the cart and her stupid rule that passengers can not sit on the floor below his seat even if the only thing he would thus disturb is the wall) and that “next time it would be better if the baby travelled in the economy class” (You're proud of you, aren’t you, Swiss Air bitch?).

That they will certainly try and distract your child on the plane if he is unsettled, or come to suggest feeding him if he is crying (it's a bit annoying that they explain any crying by hunger, but at least they try to help rather than push you further in your distress of mother-that-bothers-people).

That they will take him with them and their own children to let you “have breakfast in peace” at the restaurant. (You’re embarrassed, you don’t dare accepting, you give in and you are forever grateful to them for this little break.)

Sometimes it also gets a little extreme: it is not uncommon to see children in bars, late at night, with their parents. Or kids at the movies, watching adult films. But well, when you see how exposed to violence young Indian children can be through Indian mythology (full of violence, sex, betrayal) from an early age (see this post), you start thinking that an adult movie is not so bad.

I kind of feel like that in Europe – and I confess I was like that before having a kid –babies are above all seen as a nuisance, a source of noise and inconvenience and you don't want to be next to one on the plane. Nor anywhere else. And maybe it’s a little sad. Children are the life, future, energy and innocence that we all lose a little growing up and that they give us back if we know how to watch them live and let them be. It’s also a little sad that people don’t even give them a chance to behave before thinking that they will ruin their happiness. But maybe I’m wrong...