My India 7 - 1950-55

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Time to revert to utter nonsense from its moderate impostor:

Yes: "Waterbury Compound vanished into the Black Market".

By the time Nation States settled down from the crippling World War II, they imbibed one of 3 Model Economies, broadly speaking, by choice or force.

Now, 60 years on, they realized that none of the 3 is viable in its pristine form and made necessary adjustments, sometimes with upheavals; at others, slowly but surely.

The 3 pure types are:

(1) Closed Economy: Here everyone is a Government Servant.

'They' look after your minimum needs like housing in hovels, black bread, and a 100 Roubles pocket money for everyone other than Party Workers who 'make' you work. The Party decides what is good for you at any given point of time and promises to give it to you. You have no worries, your wife and kids are looked after, in a way. Only thing is that there is no incentive for you to work. So, you shirk, take it easy, and as time passes, no one works and there is neither hovel nor black bread produced any longer.

Then, you break the Wall and embrace a different kind of Economy for a change.

The beauty of this is that there is never a Waterbury Compound nor Black Market (or any other color of Market, so to say) for it.

(2) Open Economy: You are in the Wild West and all on your own. None to control you. You grab the Marketplace by your ingenuity. Find what your neighbor has and invent a gimmick that 'appears' a thousand times better at half the price. And there is none to check you except your neighbor who doesn't like your product. Go in for a better version. Compete, diversify or die. There is no Government nor its Servants to check you. Dog eat Dog. Everyone produces and consumes better and more better products and services; otherwise they will be impoverished and go down the penury hole, along with their families. Gang up and create a Bubble if everything fails. Then inspire the moribund Government busy fighting Oil Wars and ask for 'relief' and threaten that the Bubble will burst and take down the whole World with it.

As neat as that!

Here, within a month of a Waterbury Compound hittting the Market, there will be a dozen equivalent or better Compounds at cheaper prices. My son, who visited a Mall in an NJ Suburbia lately tells me that they have at least 20 varieties of Tea and 40 of Coffee there. My mom knew only one, the Nilgiris, and that was good enough for all of us.

(3) Controlled Economy: This is the Real Beauty. Whoever invented it deserves the Prize!

Here you are not yet a Govt Servant but hope that your son will be one in due course. To become a Govt Servant is the Big Dream of all. There are only a minuscule vacancies, but they are enough to wreck the Nation. First the Govt thinks that you don't need a Waterbury Compound. So, they don't allow it to be produced or imported.

Everyone is happy.

Then one day, some Crony wants to make his pile and offers part of the pile to everyone down the line from the respective Min to the Clerk in the Civil Supplies Depot. Then they allow an 'import license' to the Crony. He will flood the Nation with prescriptions and advertisements and thereby 'create' a Market where none was there before. Then your neighbor gloats that he buys a dozen of the bottles for himself and his family and his friends because his health has iundergone a radical improvement after he had only one bottle: his appetite is better, digestion is keener, metabolism (whatever that may mean) has electrified, and he feels younger by a decade and that much more 'virile' (that seals it!).

You, your family and friends invade the Market Stores asking for a Crate of it. Obviously the Govt has thought over this and had issued licenses only for two bottles per month per outlet. So, the Dealer says that the stock is exhausted and you come home unhappy. Then your 'foil' down the street whom you cordially dislike brings one from the Stores and shows you the bottle he just brought with a hint that you can't afford its 'Blak Market' price.

You then spit on your hands and run to the Stores and confront its Keeper. He whispers to you and guides you down dark alleys into the innards of his really 'Black' godown and shows you the very last piece he had especially reserved for you knowing that you are a connoisseur of the stuff. He also hints that the Police would be after him and you both if you leak out its existence to even your foil's foil. And asks you triple the price to cover his tips to the Customs and other Inspectors down the line. You promise, and buy it, and go home, and show it to evryone including the worst enemy of your foil.

The Market expands and everyone is happy; till Questions are raised by the Opposition in the Parliament for whatever wild reason they feel. Then the 'import license' is cancelled and the general health of the Nation is restored; physical, mental and financial.

Till Gripe Water takes over where Waterbury Compound left off.

I have known this and been a victim to this System, because my wife unfortunately couldn't breast-feed my golden son, and everybody advised me that cow's or buffalo's milk is too rich for the buffoon, and would hit his brain in spots where it really matters like JEE etc; and that only Large Tins of Lactogen would see to it that his long-term general health would be able to stay him in the Rat Race, forever. And I had to be sucker for it, because I can take chances with myself and my wife but not my kid; if things go wrong he will point out Lactogen deficiency for his Class III Failure in Math, which however is genetic; but he doesn't believe it.

So, I was spending half my salary (after 3 PF Loans were recovered for my hasty decision to marry without means) on the blessed Lactogen. And, moreover, I had to promise to do one-on-one coaching to the daughter of the only Shopkeeper who is licensed to stock the dreary thing.

Fortunately the SPS of Nehru died slowly but surely and the Market now is much less controlled, so my granddaughter Ishani can't really attribute her poor perforamnce in Math to lack of Waterbury Compound or for that matter Gripe Water.

Indeed, 20 years after the Gripe Water originally hit the Indian Market and was still going strong, a US-returned Pediatrician blasted her when the mother of a just-born asked if her baby should be on Gripe Water:

"Yea! Buy 30 bottles, drink them yourself everyday, and feed your silly enriched breast-milk to your cute baby...both of you will be healthy!"

So much for the Black Market of my 1953 childhood.


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