It was about 8pm on the eve of the 2016 US election, Mody was droning on Indian TV. It was a familiar image. I sat across from Shanta Chachi: "I feel like he is lecturing us while we eat dinner," I joked. She obliged. We laughed together. Chachaji was planted in front of us intently listening, hanging on to his every word. I assumed it was about India's greatness, it's super economic status or need to protect this great nation's borders from it's enemy states. Either way I wasn't interested. After this very extensive single camera shot high volume speech Chachaji turned to us and said, "give me your 500 and 1000 rupee note, it will turn into useless paper at midnight."
Maybe I should have paid attention.
India's financial minister, turns out, had devised a top secret plan to clear India of it's black market by eliminating 1. Counterfeit money from circulation 2. Getting rid of all of it's highest currency 3. Creating new notes that are trackable. The master plan involves catching everyone off guard and closing all of the banks and ATMs in the middle of the week for two days. It also involves allowing those bills to be used at gas stations and hospitals for two days, (empty tank and liposuction anyone?). It allows everyone to deposit money or exchange new money (limited to 10K per a day and 20K per a week) for the next 50 days.
So who's f'd? Well if you show up with a bunch of counterfeit money you're done. If you show up with a bunch of unaccounted for money that is off the books, like crores (10 million) of money, you're done (the banks will be suspicious, depositing it means putting undeclared money on the books). Yet you can' t spend it, why? Because no one will take your damn bills. The low economic class are affected too. What if you sell vegetables and you have no currency? Or if you live rupee to rupee? What if you have to stand in the bank all day so you can't go to work so you lose a day's pay which means no food for the family? Or if you simply can't get cash because the ATM is empty? What if you were passed counterfeit money but you never knew it? So the Indian people are taking a big hit right now. Now the outcomes are really to clean up the economy, which makes India a bigger player on an macroeconomic level, which hopefully helps it's people. Intentions are good, let's see what happens.
Quirky side effects of economic policy also happen: the "red" (sindoor) market if you will Is also getting cleaned out. Every Indian woman's job is to protect and provide for her family in drought and monsoon. She will secretly and consistently put away a stash of cash in anticipation of that day. Just like that family member with the "gas problem," everyone knows about but never talks about, the wives had to come clean with their stashes of cash which need to be changed out; hence the wives got smoked out with the bad guys.
While India was wresting with their new Monopoly money America was starting to vote. It was going to be a historic day. Thanks to India's high-speed broadband in the common household I was on Facebook, NYT, Politico in and out of sleep and into the waking morning watching the states turn color. My Facebook newsfeed was inspiring: pictures of my friends with their children smiling, adorned with "I voted stickers," followed by "#ImWithHer" captions. My adrenaline was pumping. The world was exciting in India as well as US. Too exciting in fact, the currency change news in India hadn't hit home, everyone was too distracted. Not a single mention of this major event in the NYT the next day (It made the BBC news). Meanwhile no one in India cared about the election they were scrambling for cash.
Refresh, refresh, refresh. States turn red. More states turn red. My stomach drops. No one around me cares. No one around me understands. I start texting friends back home. What's happening? I'm watching. Refresh, refresh, refresh. He's winning. I'm scared. I'm sitting in Chacha's house. The same house where I was laughing about the demo-communist seemingly spewing propaganda last night on TV. Nothing was funny any more. A dark curtain was dropping. Wasn't this supposed to just be a big SNL joke that went away today? We celebrated with Hillary and threw our middle finger up to the right?
I couldn't move. My Chacha and Chachi couldn't understand my overwhelming paralysis as we were getting ready to travel, which meant disconnecting from wifi. They thought I was being dramatic. I couldn't put to words what this man had said and done during this campaign, further more, I couldn't explain how deeply personal I had taken all of his rhetoric. How every part of me was shuttering. I tried to explain to them how having all three branches turn republican felt like I was going to get a battering a kin to a beaten wife returning home after trying to escape her drunken husband. I was so scared. I was pleading with the electoral vote, the popular vote, the voters in Pennsylvania.
In a world where news travels at light speed I learned that two monsterous events, one directly impacting 1.2 billion people and the other directly impacting 320 million, otherwise indirectly the entire world, had not reached each other. Neither cared about the other at that given time. We hear what we need to hear at that moment in our lives. Our information is siloed no matter how fast the speed or how accessible the information. My Facebook newsfeed has become my support network, but it has also become an echo chamber of the political reality I want to believe in. Apparently, there is an alternate reality echo chamber, stronger and louder than my newsfeed that believes it's reality is the correct one. I had no clue. We are all so connected to what and who we want to be connected to and disconnected from the rest. Awareness of this simple truth opens our hearts up for greater understanding of each other.
India and America in the same time were suffering from seeming loss of control directly administered by their democratic governments. They had both suddenly, overnight, become vulnerable to unpredictable events with chaos ensuing. Now India, most likely, will come to a calm and hopefully will have a beneficial outcome. Although, let's be honest, they could have kept the 1000 rupee note. America, on the other hand, has an unforeseen future that lies ahead.
What we all share in common is rapid onset of globalization, shared humanity, the desire to stay on this earth and protect it for our future generations. With this in mind, hopefully we will define our new futures by honoring each adult and child by listening to each other, understand one's perspective before judging, offering support and remember that generally people are usually trying their best, even when they don't show it. Either way, the only way for things to get better is to continuously, fervently continue to work on self, open lines of communication and truly understand what is ailing our seeming enemies as it, in fact, may be quite similar to us in the end. One love.
Maybe I should have paid attention.
India's financial minister, turns out, had devised a top secret plan to clear India of it's black market by eliminating 1. Counterfeit money from circulation 2. Getting rid of all of it's highest currency 3. Creating new notes that are trackable. The master plan involves catching everyone off guard and closing all of the banks and ATMs in the middle of the week for two days. It also involves allowing those bills to be used at gas stations and hospitals for two days, (empty tank and liposuction anyone?). It allows everyone to deposit money or exchange new money (limited to 10K per a day and 20K per a week) for the next 50 days.
So who's f'd? Well if you show up with a bunch of counterfeit money you're done. If you show up with a bunch of unaccounted for money that is off the books, like crores (10 million) of money, you're done (the banks will be suspicious, depositing it means putting undeclared money on the books). Yet you can' t spend it, why? Because no one will take your damn bills. The low economic class are affected too. What if you sell vegetables and you have no currency? Or if you live rupee to rupee? What if you have to stand in the bank all day so you can't go to work so you lose a day's pay which means no food for the family? Or if you simply can't get cash because the ATM is empty? What if you were passed counterfeit money but you never knew it? So the Indian people are taking a big hit right now. Now the outcomes are really to clean up the economy, which makes India a bigger player on an macroeconomic level, which hopefully helps it's people. Intentions are good, let's see what happens.
Quirky side effects of economic policy also happen: the "red" (sindoor) market if you will Is also getting cleaned out. Every Indian woman's job is to protect and provide for her family in drought and monsoon. She will secretly and consistently put away a stash of cash in anticipation of that day. Just like that family member with the "gas problem," everyone knows about but never talks about, the wives had to come clean with their stashes of cash which need to be changed out; hence the wives got smoked out with the bad guys.
While India was wresting with their new Monopoly money America was starting to vote. It was going to be a historic day. Thanks to India's high-speed broadband in the common household I was on Facebook, NYT, Politico in and out of sleep and into the waking morning watching the states turn color. My Facebook newsfeed was inspiring: pictures of my friends with their children smiling, adorned with "I voted stickers," followed by "#ImWithHer" captions. My adrenaline was pumping. The world was exciting in India as well as US. Too exciting in fact, the currency change news in India hadn't hit home, everyone was too distracted. Not a single mention of this major event in the NYT the next day (It made the BBC news). Meanwhile no one in India cared about the election they were scrambling for cash.
Refresh, refresh, refresh. States turn red. More states turn red. My stomach drops. No one around me cares. No one around me understands. I start texting friends back home. What's happening? I'm watching. Refresh, refresh, refresh. He's winning. I'm scared. I'm sitting in Chacha's house. The same house where I was laughing about the demo-communist seemingly spewing propaganda last night on TV. Nothing was funny any more. A dark curtain was dropping. Wasn't this supposed to just be a big SNL joke that went away today? We celebrated with Hillary and threw our middle finger up to the right?
I couldn't move. My Chacha and Chachi couldn't understand my overwhelming paralysis as we were getting ready to travel, which meant disconnecting from wifi. They thought I was being dramatic. I couldn't put to words what this man had said and done during this campaign, further more, I couldn't explain how deeply personal I had taken all of his rhetoric. How every part of me was shuttering. I tried to explain to them how having all three branches turn republican felt like I was going to get a battering a kin to a beaten wife returning home after trying to escape her drunken husband. I was so scared. I was pleading with the electoral vote, the popular vote, the voters in Pennsylvania.
In a world where news travels at light speed I learned that two monsterous events, one directly impacting 1.2 billion people and the other directly impacting 320 million, otherwise indirectly the entire world, had not reached each other. Neither cared about the other at that given time. We hear what we need to hear at that moment in our lives. Our information is siloed no matter how fast the speed or how accessible the information. My Facebook newsfeed has become my support network, but it has also become an echo chamber of the political reality I want to believe in. Apparently, there is an alternate reality echo chamber, stronger and louder than my newsfeed that believes it's reality is the correct one. I had no clue. We are all so connected to what and who we want to be connected to and disconnected from the rest. Awareness of this simple truth opens our hearts up for greater understanding of each other.
India and America in the same time were suffering from seeming loss of control directly administered by their democratic governments. They had both suddenly, overnight, become vulnerable to unpredictable events with chaos ensuing. Now India, most likely, will come to a calm and hopefully will have a beneficial outcome. Although, let's be honest, they could have kept the 1000 rupee note. America, on the other hand, has an unforeseen future that lies ahead.
What we all share in common is rapid onset of globalization, shared humanity, the desire to stay on this earth and protect it for our future generations. With this in mind, hopefully we will define our new futures by honoring each adult and child by listening to each other, understand one's perspective before judging, offering support and remember that generally people are usually trying their best, even when they don't show it. Either way, the only way for things to get better is to continuously, fervently continue to work on self, open lines of communication and truly understand what is ailing our seeming enemies as it, in fact, may be quite similar to us in the end. One love.