The Hindu Business Line : Literary touch to hard facts

From Charles Dickens and Henry David Thoreau to the Tamil poet Tiruvalluvar and Swami Vivekananda is a long journey in culture, language and ideology, but on Tuesday, the Finance Minister, P. Chidambaram, covered the distance quite confidently and with a touch of elegance too. The suave and articulate Harvard-educated lawyer added the right literary touches to his Budget speech to lighten it and remove the tedium of statistics.

He began with a little help from Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities, saying sombrely: "This year can be characterised as the best of times and the worst of times. Nature has not been kind to us. Natural calamities took a heavy toll on human lives besides causing extensive damage to crops, roads, houses, and the infrastructure."

But in the next breath, and breezily too, he went on to describe why the year gone by could claim "the-best-of-times" status; a GDP growth of 8.1 per cent was on the cards, with manufacturing growing at a robust 9.4 per cent

Soon, Chidambaram brought in Tiruvalluvar saying, "When faced with a dilemma, I usually turn to my favourite poet-philosopher, Saint Tiruvalluvar. Writing over 2,000 years ago, he said: "Karumam Sidhaiyamal Kannoda Vallarku/ Urimai Udaithu Iv Ulagu" (The world is his who does his job with compassion)".

Humorous side

Next, it was time for a dash of humour, and he did this effectively while bringing in some more packaged food items to the nil or reduced excise duty bracket. And rubbing shoulders with condensed milk, ice-cream and fish and poultry items were the South Indian delicacies idli and dosa! With a sheepish grin, he greeted the laughter.

Of course, the South Indian FM could not match his mentor Manmohan Singh's penchant for Urdu sher and shairi when the latter wore the cap of Finance Minister in the 1990s. But he brought his own erudite touch to the Budget speech by quoting Thoreau, while commenting on India's young generation, which has grabbed the attention of the entire world.The last word in the Budget was reserved for Swami Vivekananda: "We reap what we sow. We are the makers of our own fate. The wind is blowing; those vessels whose sails are unfurled catch it, and go forward on their way, but those which have their sails furled do not catch the wind. Is that the fault of the wind? We make our own destiny."

Added the FM, "Let us believe in our destiny, let us make our future."

At the end of the day what lingered in the memory were a few nuggets... 12 crore Indian children "are now covered under the Mid-day Meal Scheme, which is the largest school lunch programme in the world."

And, in two years, the UPA Government had "credit-linked 801,000 SHGs," disbursing about Rs 4,863 crore.

In the year 2006-07, an additional 3.85 lakh SHGs are expected to get a credit link.

What this will do to these women and their families is the stuff of dreams... and destiny.