Now, this one is not for the faint-hearted. Visualising the end-game — how the Russian invasion of Ukraine will end and with what side-effects for India — gives the jeepers to the bravest economists.

Oil prices will fly through the roof touching ₹250 per litre by December 2022. Indian crowds, anyway massively bored of masking themselves and going to malls and not buying anything, will shift preferences and just visit petrol pumps, where they will read the prices of petro-variants and not buy anything. There will be no issues about parking either, because it will anyway be supremely unaffordable to go to a petrol pump sitting in a vehicle. Crowds can just walk in and out of petrol pumps through the day.

Petrol pumps are serious about converting this opportunity into a business model. ‘We plan to have a multiplex where people will be given the experience of a car ride. Also, there will be a sniffing booth where one can smell petrol fumes. Our projections are that the ticket sales from these booths will far overtake our petrol sales by December 2023. After all, petrol is not the thing you buy anymore’, shared an excited petrol pump manager.

Banks are actively getting in the game too and have changed the definition of an HNI. Any person filling up more than 10 litres of petrol at one go will be declared an HNI and will get immediate follow up calls from 15 different banks for getting free credit cards. That by itself should help kill off whatever demand is left at the price point of ₹250 per litre. Anyone filling up more than 20 litres of petrol at a go will be entitled to get a Lifetime Achievement Super Petro Card.

Petrol pumps will offer micro-finance products akin to those hitherto offered by Indian goldsmiths. You deposit a sum, say ₹700 minimally, with the petrol pump every month. After 12 months, the petrol pump will put in the 13th instalment of ₹700. At a price point of ₹250, the total subscription of ₹9,100 will enable the customer to buy 36 litres of petrol, almost a full tank. This is luxury beyond the wildest imagination.

Petrol pumps are ecstatic about the potential revenue such products can generate. ‘Even if 20,000 customers were to subscribe to our microfinance model of ₹700 per month, our cash registers will ring in ₹1.4 crore per month. This business might even overtake our actual business of selling petrol. We also plan to apply to the RBI to set up our own petrol bank.’

With hordes of people walking in to petro-malls for a dekko, India will finally achieve the exalted status of having a mall around every corner. Quick commerce startups have been quick to spy an opportunity. ‘People will hang out in the petrol pumps and petro-malls and will get hungry. However, with food inflation through the roof, one cannot even dream of eating outside. On top of it, they cannot even rush home, they will have to necessarily walk home. We will issue a card to our hungry customers. They only have to swipe it at our petro-mall counters on their way out. Our USP is that we will deliver fruits and vegetables to them before they can get home walking from the mall-around-the corner.’

Disgruntled lobbies

Doctors are sore and feel that Putin has done a disservice to their trade. As the petrol prices zoom up to ₹250 by December 2022, it is expected that all Indian people will start walking to offices, schools, colleges and petro-malls (for depositing their instalments and for petro-entertainment). This should help control diabetes, hypertension, obesity and a number of other related disorders.

On top of it, with air pollution under strict control as the vehicles get grounded, respiratory disorders might also be controlled. Some doctors have ventured an opinion that this is presumptuous. Given that the humble Indian is simply not used to unpolluted air, quick research is needed to handle patients who might collapse due to better air quality.

If you feel crude is getting rude, groundnut isn’t about being grounded anymore. Groundnut oil prices, together with other edible oils, will reach straight for the sky. This will be bad for the bottomline, good for topline and wonderful for the waistline. Even as Putin wages his war on obesity levels, Indian gyms will get lean in their pockets. After a long day of eating boiled stuff and walking back home, Indian populace will barely about have energy to stand in the evening, forget hitting the gym for a workout.

Prepare for the end-game! Oil is going to roil, you better boil your veggies immediately.

The writer is a brave economist trying to laugh against the odds

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