The need for fiat currency

In a recent post, I'd expressed concern that the current economic slowdown is a symptom of structural issues, rather than just a liquidity crunch. My main argument is that, the slowdown we are seeing, is actually a result of the massive economic growth we saw in the last few years leading to increased capability for value addition, and a resultant increase in demand for money supply.

Money supply is not the same as liquidity crunch. In the latter, there is enough money in the system to cater to its demands, but the money is not "flowing" (probably due to hoarding and distrust). But, money supply scarcity is an even more fundamental problem. It refers to the dearth of money itself, to meet the growing demands of the economy.

There is a recent video (in Kannada) on social media, that makes a pretty convincing case that the current slowdown is not due to structural issues with the economy. The speaker likens the slowdown to us deciding to walk for 15 kms and taking a rest after about 8 kms. He also provides a very convincing argument that the slowdown is not in all sectors, by noting that sales of smartphones, refrigerators and AC units have actually gone up. He then goes on to end in an optimistic note that the current trade war between US and China, may mean that more manufacturing jobs will now come to India.

The arguments are very well made, but not convincing enough to dispel my misgivings about the structural issue itself.

Let me give another analogy about the problem. The growth of an emerging economy like India, is not so much like us walking for 15 kms, but somewhat more like a child growing up into a teenager. This transition from a developing and largely impoverished economy, to a potential economic leader, requires several structural evolution along the way to manage growth pangs. There is not enough evidence that we are recognising this.

Money supply reserves in India, are largely based on valuation of our foreign exchange and gold reserves. What this means is, the amount of money that is there in the system is proportional to the amount of stuff we can buy from other countries, and the amount of gold we can pay for it. Our capability for meeting demand and supply within the economy itself, has no say in the amount of money in the system.

So what do we do if we need more money in the system? We either flagellate ourselves to go and meet economic needs of other economies to increase our foreign exchange reserves, or try and dig up more gold-- either from our mines, or from the lockers of families. None of it results in an economic incentive for citizens to solve our problems first.

The "gold standard" for money supply primarily came to vogue a couple of centuries ago, when inter-currency trade took centerstage as a result of industrial revolution. However, the gold standard has been obsoleted for "fiat" currency (or currency minting by decree), by several major economies of the world. There are several examples of "economic skew" that happens when money supply is based on very narrow criteria like gold reserves. For example, in the Irish potato famine of the 19th century, the government decided to export food to buy gold reserves (and hence mint more money), than reduce its food exports and feed its own people. Similarly, during the California gold rush, a bottle of water costed as high as $140-- because everyone was trying to figure out how to mine more gold, rather than how to harvest water. Because, gold meant money.

These problems are well known, and most major economies around the world, have put mechanisms in place to mint money by governmental fiat (decree), rather than base it solely on foreign exchange or gold reserves. The fiat is not arbitrary of course-- and not every fiat would result in hyperinflation. It is possible to implement fiat models that makes a fairly accurate estimate of money supply demand in the system.

Finally, the "optimism" about manufacturing jobs coming to India is not really optimistic. Given the fact that Indian diaspora are all over the world, India does have the knowledge and capability to build its own industries in just about all hi-tech sectors like semi-conductors, hi-res optics, etc. However, it is still so difficult to get anything built in India. Flawed money supply models (coupled with liquidity and trust issues), make it a herculean task to convert our theoretical knowledge into practice. Even today for example, opening a high-end hotel requires about 156 different kinds of permits! The licence and permit raj was supposed to have ended long ago?

So even when multi-national companies come to invest in India, they only outsource some low-end work to India and keep all the necessary intellectual property and competitive advantage to themselves.

And it goes without saying that, basing our economic growth on the arrival of multinationals, only increases the disparity between the market exchange rate of the dollar to its relative purchasing power. What we can buy for 1 dollar in the US, on an average, we can buy for 15 rupees in India. But, if we exchange 1 dollar in currency markets, we get about 74 rupees per dollar! What this means is that there is no incentive for educated professionals to take up any of our own country's problems and solve it, when they can instead solve somebody else's problem and earn more money for the same or lesser amount of effort. 

Asking the "right" questions

As a professor, I am often approached by students wanting some form of career advice-- especially when they plan to take a major leap in their lives, by going abroad for higher studies for their Master's or PhD.

It takes me back to my own times when I took this major leap in my life, and my professor, very strangely, didn't seem very happy. I had expected him to congratulate me when I told him that I had won this prestigious fellowship to study in one of the most prestigious university in Europe. And his lack of enthusiasm, made me hurt and defensive. At that time, I had haughtily and contemptuously believed that he was upset with me because I'd decided to go abroad and build my own life, rather than registering for a PhD under him.

Such was my delusion that his comments had completely missed their significance. Even though he seemed less than enthusiastic, he had discussed at length with me about my plans and I had asked him a lot of questions like: which field of study to take up, what has the most scope, how are European universities ranked vis-a-vis American ones, etc.

And he kept repeatedly telling me, "You're not asking the right questions!"

All these happened more than 20 years ago. Today, I think I'm in a better state to articulate what those "right questions" were, in the hope that the youngsters who come to me for guidance do not make the same old mistake. (They can make newer mistakes, of course!)

As part of our schooling and mainstream education, I realise that we are never taught the following things:

1. What is meant by a sense of identity.
2. How money works. 
3. How cultural persuasion works.
4. What is meant by ownership. 

Instead, we are fed with all kinds of social cues and signals, which we believe as the underlying truth.

Firstly let me set aside the myth of the "prestige" of a university and its effectiveness on our careers. Sure, a prestigious institution name on your CV may open a few doors. But if that is all is your trump card, then the problem is really somewhere else. The way I see it, there is something seriously wrong if someone were to make a higher education choice, based primarily on the prestige of the university. Higher education leading to a Master's degree or a PhD requires achieving mastery or even extending the boundaries of known knowledge. The primary factor that should drive the pursuit for higher education is our strong interest, curiosity, and a willingness to commit in the subject matter that we wish to study.

And what defines this "strong interest and curiosity"? No, it is not how "cool" or "contemporary" is the topic, or what is its future "scope" or something such. The "strong interest and curiosity" is driven by a deep sense of identity. We somehow identify with the problem that we wish to pursue. It is way more relevant to us, and we have a sense of "ownership" towards the problem. We care about it, and even feel responsible for finding answers. At some level, we are saying to ourselves, "I cannot wait for someone else to find answers to these questions.. if I don't answer these questions, who else will?" It is this sense of identification and ownership of the questions that we are pursuing, which is what gives us direction and helps keep our wits together when the going gets tough.

By default, the rapidly industrialising world is geared to view every individual as a resource to be consumed for obtaining greater competitiveness, power, glory or profits (for the company, country, leader, etc.) I'd once remarked that education ought to be an "irrigation" mechanism that nurtures and builds strong roots for the individual; while instead, it is more of a "harvesting" mechanism that injects hormones and steroids (read: latest technological buzzword) and packages the individual to be sold to the highest bidder from the industry. Industry continues this even more, and treats the individual as a billable resource for its clients. Hiring departments are called "Human Resources" for a reason!

This "componentization" of the individual happens in so many subtle ways using a variety of persuasive mechanisms including money, "cultural values", religion, etc. And much of it is not a painful journey at all. In fact, the journey can be downright beautiful, flattering, even "inspiring" and full of pleasant surprises, lasting over several years. You would be praised, awarded, called a "genius," given a lot of freebies, club memberships, business class tickets, and ever so subtly orienteered to a state where the only option you have is to be the resource that is expected of you-- fully and completely.

During the days when slavery was legal, such a thing used to be called, "accepting your chains with joy and gratitude"-- just saying.

A lot of people are in fact, happy being just that. For instance, a lot of IIT graduates are perfectly happy selling soap and toothpaste for multinationals. It is perfectly fine and it is their choice. But really, did they need higher education for that? Wouldn't that seat that they took up might have been better filled by someone else who had a fire in them to really identify with and help solve some pressing problem for the society?

The pain about our life's "meaning" really hits us when age has caught up with us, when our spirit has dwindled, and we are of no use to anyone. By that time we would be deeply entrenched in an economic machine that runs on keeping us perennially in a state of debt and insecurity. It is then that we realise that the big decisions we thought we had made, were not made by us at all. They were made for us by someone else, including people close to us and whom we trusted blindly. These decisions were more of a strategic decision for them, than a meaningful decision for us. And most painfully, they would have taken this decision for us with a genuine belief that it is for our own good. As the saying goes, "The road to hell is paved with good intentions."

If we want to really help someone, the best we can do is to help them build their individuality. Individuality is built by understanding principles of self inquiry. If we do not know how to build our individuality and find what is meaningful for us, right where we are, it is unlikely that we will be able to do so by cliched things like "travelling the world to find oneself (in debt)." (parenthetical extension, mine).

Ruminations II

UPDATE: There seems to be a mistaken inference from this post, that the concept of "economic holes" is the same as liquidity crunch, and demonetisation from 2016 is the cause for that. This is not true. Liquidity crunch typically happens due to hoarding of cash, arising primarily from uncertainty in the economy. Economic holes is a money supply problem. It is much deeper, and has nothing to do specifically with the current government or demonetisation. Both the current government and previous ones, have ignored this problem. I'd written about economic holes back in the early 2000s. It is really about whether an economy has relevant mechanisms to make its money supply keep up with the demands of a growing economy. 

The Indian mind may have an acute acumen for sustainability, but what we really don't understand is growth and its importance. To put it in dharmic terminology-- we have an instinct for dharma, but we don't understand the importance of prana.

Be it Kingfisher Airlines, Jet Airways, or now the tragic end to the founder of Cafe Coffee Day, there is one common pattern. They are all seen from some lens as cheaters, because their companies could not repay the debts they had accrued.

But the fundamental problem is not about debt repayment or even restructuring-- it is about money supply. Money, or currency, is a representation for economic value present in a system. Currency by itself is of no value, unless someone is willing to receive the money we have, and provide goods or services.

Everybody seems to understand hyperinflation-- that is, what happens when there is too much currency in the economy. This is what our adversarial neighbours aim to do, when they push fake currency notes into our system. Too much currency in the system with respect to value, will reduce the utility of the currency itself.

What we don't seem to understand is the opposite of hyperinflation-- which is what I call an economic hole. What happens when the potential for value addition, exceeds the money supply in the system?

Indian economy is full of economic holes. There is demand and there is supply-- but they don't meet because there is no "money" to facilitate this economic exchange.

For instance, it is common to see so many apartment owners struggle to find tenants who can help pay off their EMIs, and similarly, so many people looking for rental homes, struggling to find an apartment that suits their budget. As a result, many apartments in large cities go empty, while there is overcrowding in chawls and graymarket PGs.

The demand is there, the supply is there, but the "money" is not there.

The same thing is true for major companies that are facing shutdown or have been shut down ("shot down" is more like it). There is an increasing demand for air travel. There are many empty airports (from the UDAAN scheme) waiting for airlines to connect them to the aviation map. And there are many businesses and a complete ecosystem whose survival depends on a thriving aviation industry.

Similarly, there is a huge demand for coffee lounges-- the concept pioneered in India by Cafe Coffee Day. They are not just a place for college students to hangout. CCD lounges are where business deals are made in the millions, everyday, across the country.

Yet, all of these businesses are struggling to pay their debts. Why? Not because, they made bad business decisions, but because we have economic holes-- there is not enough money in the system.

It is somewhat like an apartment owner, who has to pay a monthly EMI of Rs. 30,000/- but only gets a rental income of Rs. 10,000/- per month.

There is just not enough money in the system to fuel the growth in value addition that is happening. So, when faced with a contention between lack of money supply on the one hand, and economic growth on the other, we (the system), prefer to curtail economic growth and kill businesses (and people along with it), instead of increasing the money supply in the system!

*~*~*~*~*

So what is the solution to this? How do we increase money supply in a way that does not result in hyperinflation, but helps in filling economic holes? 

In the 1930s, the US economy was in a state of depression. People had to stand in queues in their harsh winters, to get their daily doles of bread loaves. 

But just a few decades later, the US became the undisputed economic leader of the world, in the 20th century. 

A lot of factors went into making this happen. But an important factor is about how they managed to keep up money supply, with the increasing demands of a growing economy. 

They introduced the concept of scrips-- which are essentially debt or IOU statements, that companies issue to their lenders. The state in turn, treated scrips as legal tender, which allowed the lenders to sell the scrips to others in exchange for value. But more importantly, the state infused that much amount of currency as mentioned in a (genuine, recognised) scrip, into the system.

The newly minted currency against a scrip, was not given to the company or its lenders. They were just infused into the economy (through banks and NBFCs that could offer cheap loans, and also in the form of social security or welfare benefits to people below poverty line). It meant that consumers now had more money to buy goods or services that the companies were producing, which in turn helped the companies meet their debts. 

Yes of course, the US economy is in quite a bit of mess now. But that is not because of the money supply issue, but because companies tried to cut costs by pushing jobs overseas and leveraging on arbitrage benefits coming from differences in currency rates. That is a completely different story altogether. 

The primary point here is that we don't recognise the problem of economic holes-- or the paucity of money supply for increasing demands of a growing economy. Instead, we shoot down businesses, hound their leaders, and bring down entire ecosystems, simply because we don't understand that these businesses have the ability to create value (which is what an economy is about), but they don't have the "money" to stay afloat.

(On a lighter note-- when our adversarial neighbours push fake currency notes into the system, the government should seize as much these fake notes as possible, and put a stamp of legitimacy on them and make them legal tender and infuse them back into the economy! It can help fill several economic holes! And we get our currency notes printed for free by our neighbours!)

On the sense of fairness

Some time ago I was witness to this interaction between a boy of maybe 6 years old and his mother, involving his even smaller sister of maybe 3 years old. He was very upset with his mother because she had just bought his sister a nice woollen cap and a sweater to keep her warm, while she had bought him nothing (he was already wearing warm clothes). He was protesting to her and throwing tantrums about having been left out.

"He becomes jealous very quickly," his mother told me, looking somewhat apologetic and embarrassed about his public tantrums. "Now, now dear.. Don't be jealous of your sister. Don't you love your little sister?" She asked him. In response to this, he suddenly became defensive and started looking ashamed. He did after all, love his little sister, and yes he had been taught that to be jealous of her would be a flaw in his character.

This episode took me back to my own childhood experiences, where similar episodes elicited similar responses, the end result of which was a kind of battering of my self image and feeling ashamed. Somehow, I could not help feeling the initial emotion which was interpreted as "jealousy" and invariably I was brought to a state where I had to end up feeling ashamed and small, because of my "jealous" emotions.

But was that really "jealousy"? I spoke to the little kid after this episode and made him play the "ultimatum game" (which I'll explain in a while), and my suspicions were right. He was not feeling jealous-- his strong emotions were because, his sense of "fairness" had been violated. And by making him feel guilty, and by calling him "jealous" the mother had actually made the problem worse. Now he is feeling unfair at two levels-- one for what he perceived as his unfair treatment, and second, for the unfair interpretation of his emotional outburst.

One of the least understood psychological traits is our sense of fairness. Our sense of fairness transcends self interest. People with a strong sense of fairness, fight for fairness even when it does not personally affect them. In fact, if we were to fight for fairness only to the extent that it applies to us, then it is nothing but self interest. A sense of fairness transcends self interest.

The Ultimatum game is a well known game from game theory that models our sense of fairness. In this game, a given sum of money, say Rs. 100, is to be split between two people A and B. One of them, say A, acts as a proposer and proposes a split like say: "60 for me 40 for you." If the other person called the decider, accepts this proposal, the money is split and shared accordingly. If the decider rejects the proposal, then both have to leave the game with no money.

When this game was played across the world, it showed vast variations in the way the decider functions when offered an unequal split, like say 80-20.

A lot of people accepted any proposal that gave them some amount greater than 0, because obviously their payoff if they rejected they proposal was 0. This is plain vanilla rationality-- choose an option that gives a better payoff than one that gives a lesser payoff.

But people with a strong sense of fairness usually had a tolerance limit (like say 60-40 or 70-30 or even 50-50). If the proposal violated this limit, they rejected the proposal. Hence for a person whose tolerance limit was 50-50, if the other person offered even 51-49, the proposal would be rejected. Their logic-- although convoluted-- does make sense. When the person rejects a 51-49 proposal, he would end up losing Rs 49; but it it is still considered rational because, "I may have lost Rs. 49, but you have lost Rs 51. That should teach you a lesson about treating others unfairly!"

In fact, I have received the same explanation about the underlying rationality behind this choice, when I have played the ultimatum game with some students and others who had displayed a strong sense of fairness.

If the proposer does not have a strong sense of fairness, this logic would be lost on them. It would appear to them that the decider is "cutting his nose to spite his face"-- that is, hurting himself just to spite the other. It would be very hard for them to see why would someone give up a lucrative offer, just to spite the other.

*~*~*~*~*

So what exactly is fairness? Our sense of fairness strives to preserve some kind of "parity" in social interactions. This sense of parity can very well be crudely modelled and implemented.

For instance in the example from above, for the little boy, fairness or parity probably meant equality in the received gifts. If he doesn't get what his sister got and vice versa (that is, if his sister didn't get what he got), he would consider it unfair.

It also reminds me of one episode when I was myself about 6 years old. My grandparents had come to visit, and had bought us a pumpkin as a gift, from their backyard garden. Our backyard garden had a bitter gourd plant, and we had harvested several bitter gourds. When my parents gave them a few bitter gourds in return, I had apparently protested and thrown a similar tantrum saying, when they have given us one pumpkin, they should get only one bitter gourd in return.

While the tantrums of a 6-year old and their crude sense of fairness, may appear cute; a crude sense of fairness when implemented as a state policy is not cute at all. Imagine a sense of fairness where everybody gets paid the same amount of money regardless of the work they do. There is such a sense of fairness that have been really implemented in societies-- it is called egalitarianism. Similarly, consider another example of a "fair" society where everybody is compulsorily made to take up agriculture and work in the fields-- by arguing that feeding oneself is all what we need as a society.

Fanaticism, bigotry, and religious fundamentalism are all ironically, a result of someone's crude sense of fairness getting violated. It is only when our sense of fairness is violated, do we act in an "irrational" manner, doing things that can adversely impact us along with others. If we do not develop our sense of fairness and allow it to mature, or worse, keep reinforcing a latent crude sense of fairness, it can lead to much bigger social problems in the future.

To help develop our sense of fairness into a mature model, we need to challenge our beliefs, practice prudence, and make stringent efforts to see an issue through the lens of others. We will also need to understand the difference between "sameness" and "oneness." A crude sense of fairness, strives for "sameness"-- in that it wants everyone to be treated the same, and receive the same benefits and payoffs for anything. In contrast, a developed sense of fairness strives to uphold a sense of "oneness." It understands that despite our differences, we are but one world and are deeply connected to form the one creation. An evolved sense of fairness understands that the suffering of one is in fact, the suffering of everyone. We cannot have a healthy body even if one part of our body is diseased. A pain in any part of our body is a pain for our entire self. An evolved sense of fairness understands this oneness.

African Proverbs

In school where we studied under the Macaulayite system of education, we learnt of Africa as the "dark continent" comprising of primitive tribes. And indeed even to this day, Africa is seen by the rest of the Westernised world, as a place of primitive tribes and cultures. Which is why, a 100 people dying in a shootout in Mali a few days ago, finds no mention in mainstream media, while 50 people dying in a shootout earlier in New Zealand is still debated on all channels.

And movies like "The Gods must be crazy" just reinforce the primitive and naive stereotype of African tribes. The movie is based on an assumption by the story teller, that the African bushmen thinks of Europeans as Gods, and goes on to self-deprecate the Western culture in order for the narrative to appear humble.

Similarly, there are ample do-gooders who appeal to the Western tourist to observe other ("primitive") cultures with "humility" and not try to offer solutions. Notwithstanding the fact that, by reminding ourselves to "observe with humility", we are already putting ourselves on a higher pedestal!

The best strategy of course, is to interface with other cultures with genuine curiosity, where we just wish to learn, and are not even thinking about our humility or lack of it. Once we start doing this, we encounter deep profundity no matter where we look -- be it in Africa or in the Nicobar tribes or in animal societies or even in the most unlikeliest of places for profundity, like Wall Street!

This post is about how African wisdom entered my life at the right moments when I needed them most. Here is a collection of them:

It all started when I first realised that much of what we had learnt in school about our own culture and history were just utterly wrong. We were taught stories that we were told to be true, but we could sense that they could not be true. Things didn't add up between the values we were taught at home and the interpretation of our culture in school. It was then that, out of the blue, this proverb just landed on my browser one day:

"Until the lion learns how to write, every story will glorify the hunter"

Wow! Sudden flash of clarity in my mind. Then I started to regress backwards in time in my mind, to try and understand what was troubling me, and have written about it quite a bit, on this very blog. And as if on cue, the following landed up in front of me:

"He who digs too deep for a fish, may come out with a snake"

Eeks! And how! There were snakes all over the place inside my mind as I regressed into the past. And just as I was about to fight them, the following reached out to me:

"Never beat a snake when you haven't seen its head"

Got it boss! I'm not going to fight those snakes. I don't even know how many are there and where are its heads. And while they were scary, they were not the only danger. As I became more and more obsessed with the snakes around me, the following word of caution dropped into my browser:

"Because we focused on the snake, we missed the scorpion"

Wow! That was ehh.. scary! But thanks for that, African proverbs!

And soon, once I understood this, my outlook towards others changed. What I thought were acts of stupidity or violence on the part of others, turned out to be their desperate measures for survival from the snakes in their minds or in their vicinity:

"A man does not run among thorns for no reason; either he is chasing a snake or a snake is chasing him"

Understood. But why were these snakes invisible all along? Well:

"When the axe entered the forest, the trees said, 'Look, the handle is one of us!'"

Now I see it! Yup, we were taught to celebrate and welcome everything into our lives, and look for something familiar, when dealing with something unfamiliar. In short, we were taught to be trusting, which became our naivety, because we didn't know the above proverb.

We had no idea to what extent we had been repressed and subjugated for centuries, and traumatic practices became associated with our "culture" and "values". African proverbs were there to help explain this yet again:

"If evil lasts for a long time, it will become a tradition"

While I'm still shaking my head at the profundity of the above, my thoughts go into psychological ramifications of traumatic upbringing. As kids, it is still common to see elders thrashing, admonishing and invalidating them on just about everything, because "it is all for their own good". And I wondered how this would pan out in the long term. An African proverb was ready to help me out here too:

"A child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth"

After getting enormously depressed and disillusioned with life, after having learnt the above, I was more than ready to give up on life. I mean, what is the point of anything? Why live at all? Thankfully, (you got it) African proverbs were there to bring me hope and soothe my pains and show me the way forward:

"If you think you are too small to make a difference, you haven't spent a night with a mosquito"

Which brought a smile to my face.. but I was still lost.. Then came this:

"Pearls don't lie on the seashore -- if you want one, you must dive for it!"

Yes.. despite the snakes! And also:

"No matter how long the night, the day is sure to come"

True that! Suddenly, I felt much better!

"When there is no enemy within, the enemies outside cannot hurt you"

What a profound insight! True, there are a lot of adversaries outside. But it is really the adversaries inside me with whom I have to live with, in my most vulnerable moments. I need to deal with the enemies within! And how do I do that? Well:

"The best way to fight an alien and oppressive culture, is to embrace your own"

"A speaker of truth has no friends"

"The truth is like a lion, You don't have to defend it. Let it loose, it will defend itself"

Satyameva jayate! Talk about actionable insights! No predictive model or advanced AI/ML ever gave me this level of clarity on what to do and what can I expect when I do it..! 

And finally, as an icing on the cake, came this pearl of wisdom:

"If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together"

Yup. I want to go far. Not fast. I want everyone to be together. Because:

"The youth can walk faster, but the elder knows the road"

Thank you African proverbs!! You have no idea how much you have changed my life!!

A tale of two brothers

'Tis a tale of two brothers
One called Ramu,
and the other Shamu,
from a village long ago..

'Tis the story of their lives

and the lessons learned..

when out to the world,

they decided to go..

Both went far and wide..

till one day,

Ramu found a Master--

and Shamu found a Guru..

They learned their lessons well,

and strived hard with sincerity..

until they were ready--

to go in search of prosperity..

Ramu had learnt to submit 

and yield to the will of his Master..

so that he could think like Him,

and follow his path, thereafter.. 

Shamu had learnt to think,

with abstraction and dispassion..

so he could argue and inquire,

with empathy and compassion..

The Master chiseled the mind of Ramu 

and moulded him, as if he were

a lump of clay..

While the Guru nurtured Shamu

and helped him discover himself through his thoughts--

while at work and at play..

Ramu learned to treat his Master

with fear and deference..

And that he faced a lot of punishments,

was an obvious inference.. 

Shamu explored his mind

to experience a sense of deep connection--

that connected him to his Guru and to the universe,

with a bond of love and affection..

While the Master taught of devotion

as loyalty, allegiance and submission.. 

The Guru taught of devotion 

as commitment, identification and compassion..

Ramu returned sharp, smart and disciplined,

and always with him was a guide..

It was his Master's book of commandments..

that he worshipped everyday, 

and held on to with dignity and pride..

Shamu returned calm, composed and wise..

and never needed a guide--

The Guru gave him no holy book,

and that came as no surprise.. 

As the years rolled by, Ramu went far and wide,

and earned for himself name and fame.. 

Shamu too reached out far and wide, 

but always returned to from where he came..

The more he acquired fame, 

the more Ramu felt a deep loss..

Inside him was a chasm that--

with all of his wealth, 

he never could cross.. 

People spoke of Shamu, 

as if he were a banyan tree..

He grew tall and wide, 

but never went anywhere.. 

For his deep roots helped sustain

a rich ecosystem, from here to there..

While Shamu is loved, revered and celebrated,

he has but one lament..

as the world adopts modernity, 

the earth under him as turned into cement!