The Place Where I Live

Hello my beautiful, awesome, gorgeous readers!

I am back with a new article. In the past, I have written two most serious articles that readers may have started hating me. One on Marketing and the other on macro-economics, to be specific on inflation. So, today I thought that I should not bore you. I thought I should write something lighter for everybody to understand and enjoy.

I was looking for a topic for few weeks. First I thought to write about something on current affairs but no burning topic clicked me. So, suddenly few minutes back while chilling at Starbucks, Powai, I got a click. I thought why shouldn’t I write about the city I live? The city where everybody dreams to stay in, the city where the local trains are the life line, the city where the waves of the Arabian sea teaches people to dream…..dream bigger indeed. Yes I am talking about Bombay urf Mumbai, the city where I love to live, enjoy every second, enjoy the crowd, the mountains, the forest, the sea and off course the Starbucks ;-)

MUMBAI: THE CITY THAT HAS IT ALL

Mumbai, to describe this place in one line is that, this is the city of dreamers, hard laborers, actors and gangsters, stray dogs and exotic birds, artists, servants, fisher-folks and millionaires.

It has the most prolific film industries, one of Asia’s biggest slums and the largest tropical forest in an urban zone. This is also India’s financial powerhouse, fashion capital and a pulse point of religious tension as well.

The city has evolved its own language called Bambaiyya Hindi which is a mix of aaaaaah everything. It has also got some of the world’s most expensive real estate and a knack of creating those multi-storey buildings by creating land from water and garbage.

Contrary you might think, you might not have almost died in that train, or been rushed in the station crowd of Dadar or run over by that guy wearing a funny outfit like a monkey. The city has its own rhythm. The city is complex but has a playful raga, a gliding and light-footed dance that all of Mumbai seems to know.

The Bollywood:

Mumbai is the place of bollywood, the gigantic film industry of Hindi Language. This industry produces more than 900 films every year which is highest in the world compared to any other film industry (yes Hollywood too).  Bollywood is famous for its formulae of Masala Entertainment. Singing and dancing, lover’s fight and winning over all enemies is a very natural phenomenon in an average bollywood film. Bollywood stars can attain near godlike status in India. Their face appears in many advertisements across the country. Star spotting in a posh locality of Mumbai is a favorite time pass for mumbaikars. Visit outside Mannat (SRK’s residence) at bandstand at any point of time and you could see people waiting the super star to wave his hand from his balcony or window when he is at home.

The slums:

It was in a bollywood film few years back called Slumdog Millionaire, represented how the other half of the city lives in Mumbai in a stereotypical fashion.  The slum dwellers represent approximately 60% population of Mumbai. The life of slums is strikingly normal. Residents normally pay rent and most of the houses are having a small room, a kitchen (most of the time in the same room) with a common washroom used by at least 20 families. The building materials are normally of iron shacks or concrete multistory with iron stairs from outside of it. The famous slums of Mumbai are Dharavi and Govandi which caters to approximately 55% of the total slum population of Mumbai. Dharavi residents often have white collar jobs, they choose to stay like that because of decent rent and to stay near to their work places. Do not judge people of Mumbai with the place where they stay. An illiterate vegetable vender can be seen staying in a multistory apartment in Andheri or Bandra whereas a white-collar jobbie can be seen staying at a slum at Dharavi.

Understanding the city and its local economy is too tough. Do not even try to be logical to understand because you will never understand.

The Local Train: Unique Facts:

The local train is called the lifeline of the city which is the cheapest local transport to reach anywhere to anywhere in the city. The Mumbai Sub-urban trains has three line extensions, Western, Central and Harbour.   All three lines connect from different outer parts of Mumbai to the South Mumbai, which is the actual Mumbai City. The places of Mumbai are defined by the railway stations; western side of the rail line is called west and eastern side, east. When you say that you stay at Ghatkopar, the person will automatically figure out that you stay at the central line and if you stay at andheri, it’s western line. People will also understand how much time you take to reach your office from your place without you even telling them. People also make train mates here which are unique. They know their train mates more than their neighbors and this is hilarious for the person who doesn’t stay at Mumbai, but normal for a mumbaikar.

Conclusion:

To conclude my article, it is very important to know the fact that Mumbai is one of the most unique cities in the planet. Experiencing the uniqueness as a tourist is not what you can expect. You need to come here in the city to stay like a common man, and then you can experience the great uniqueness. First few months, you will get astonished; you will have a lot of new experiences to share with your family and friends who are not a mumbaikar; but after that? You will BE a part of that uniqueness. I guarantee you, that you will never be able to love any other city in the planet when you experience the flavor of Mumbai, when you smell the diesel of B.E.S.T. bus (the local bus), or get into an over-crowded train while listening to the crowd saying “poora khali hai, chalo chalo” (train is empty……get in get in) and I am sure later you will also change the definition of a crowded train in the back of your mind.

You need to learn and appreciate the city’s lighting cadences, its harmonies of excess and restraint. The stately fantastical architecture, the history hanging in the air of the markets, the scent of jasmine at the ladies’ car of the train, the gardens, the street vendors, the midnight cycle vendors selling snacks, tea and smokes whole night, the balloon-wallas asking you to buy their balloons so that they have the fate to have that night’s meal and also the greatest intellectuals in the old libraries- All these will take you in if you let it.

So sit back, develop your equanimity and set yourself be a part of the song “Ye hai Mumbai, Ye hai Mumbai, Ye hai Mumbai……Meri Jaan” (This is Mumbai, my heart)

(Few points and languages are taken from an article of Lonely Planet)

BASICS OF INFLATION AND THE EFFECT OF ZERO INFLATION IN AN ECONOMY

The word “inflation” came from latin word “inflatio” which means “blow into”. The Little Oxford Dictionary defines the abstract noun inflation which came from the verb “inflate” as “expansion of something by filling it up with gas”. But when the term comes to macro-economics, this means something different.

We all use the term inflation but many of us don’t know the basics of the inflation. Whenever the price goes up we say there must be high inflation coming up in our country or whenever we see some news on our television reporting high inflation, we instantly say that now the price is going to increase. So, now in this article, I will discuss about the basics of inflation at the beginning in a very simple language which will give an idea of inflation to the novice readers and later I will come to the subject of Zero inflation effect.

The simplest definition of Inflation is Inflation is either a rise of prices or fall in the value of the currency. That means inflation is an increase in the cost of things that are necessary for humans to live and enjoy life; such as bread, butter, rice, sugar, chicken, meat, cotton, electronics etc.

There are two major causes of inflation; some inflation is caused because the reserve bank of the country printed too much currency or experienced financial disaster causing its currency to plummet. Other sources of inflation can be rise in diesel or petrol or gas prices which results higher transportation costs. This makes shipping goods from one place to another more expensive which results increase in costs. So, to make profits manufacturers increase the price of the staple goods such as rice, wheat, toothpaste, sugar, chicken etc. At this point consumers demand to increase their pay at their workplaces because of the price-rise, and to increase the pay, companies prefers to pressure higher profits. To make higher profits companies again have to increase the price of their products and services. So, again rise of prices results more inflation. This is when economists call that “Inflation has embedded in the economy”.

 So, for any economy lowering the inflation is a prime motto alongside higher GDP and higher Per-Capita Income. There are different ways of controlling the inflation an economy adopts such as

1.   Monetary policy of the central bank
2. . Fixed Exchange Rate
3.   Setting Gold Standard
4.   Wage and Price Controls
5.   Indexing Income Tax
6.   Cost of Living Allowance

Keeping the title of this article in mind, I will not go in detail of the above mentioned points but I can simply say that if any economy does this effectively; inflation can be very well controlled.

Effect of Minimizing Inflation:

The dream of every economy is to minimize inflation. Ronald Reagon once said “Inflation is as violent as mugger, as frightening as armed robber and as deadly as a hit man”. Inflation can kill an economy in such a way, that an economy can dissolve, a currency can dissolve. The example of dissolving the Zimbabwean currency in 2009 is worth mentioning here. Even with the USD, the Zimbabwean economy is still struggling hard. We get all whatever we need in a developed economy when we control and minimize the inflation. Such as:

1.   Price Stability
2.     High Real Income 
3.   Employment
4.   Low risk in business
5.   High Interest Rates for FDs and Savings accounts from different financial institutions
6.   Lower Income Tax (If the monetary policy index the tax with the rate of inflation)
7.   Confidence of investors
8.   Rise of Stock Market Index
9.   Rise in return of bond and debentures 
10.    Affluent lifestyle of the population

So, controlling and minimizing inflation is the only medicine for an economy to sustain, grow and prosper.

The Zero Inflation Effect:

Most people believe that all the central banking institution of the world always try keeping a lid on inflation but most central banks in reality do not believe the concept of zero inflation because it is fundamentally flawed on many aspects. Let’s discuss those one by one:

1.     

1. The most obvious danger of too low or zero inflation is the risk of slipping into outright deflation, when prices of different products (especially staple products) persistently fall which becomes devastating on an economy as a whole
   
   
2. Zero inflation implies stability of spending only in a stationary economy. In a growing economy with more to be bought, stability of money spending requires falling prices. In an economy where productivity is declining, stability of spending requires that prices generally rise. In a globalized world like ours it is unconventional for a stationary economy to exist.Zero inflation has no use in a dynamic economy
   
3.  Zero inflation policy that would be arbitrary when productivity is improving could lead to disaster where productivity to fall significantly. Zero inflation would then require a forced concentration (via tight money) of spending to offset the normal tendency for the prices of scarcer goods to rise. Debtors would find their real income reduced but the amount of real income needed to repay the debts would be unchanged.

Thus we actually do not need a zero inflation policy. Most central banking institutions are aware of this, the economy of current times surely needs stable spending. It will result sustained improvements in productivity would necessitate falling prices; but these would not involve the bad side-effects usually associated with deflation. On the other hand, falling output would cause inflation of the price level, but without the poisonous effects of inflations stemming from excessive money injections.