Godly cash flows Sunday, Mar 15 2009

People think that the credit crunch is a creation of the 21st century. However, like the religious fundementalists say, all things are there in the scriptures. The Gods of India have a practical example of how individuals with low credit ratings are forced to accept loan terms which are frankly usurious. In contrast, we shall also see how a well managed fiscal plan makes living comfortably.

Our tale begins with Mr. Venkateshwara, a young god with a great deal on his hands, but not much hard cash to his name. One fine day, he finds this young lady and decides to marry her. But the young lady is not content with a simple court wedding. After all, this is a god’s wedding, and must be celebrated with the pomp and ceremony it delivers. So, Mr. Venkatashwara goes to Kuber Bank, a closely held firm controlled by its namesake, and requests a personal loan for marriage expenses.

Now, Kuber takes one look at the impecunious Venkateshwara (also called Balaji), and decides that this young man is what would be called sub-prime. And not only is he sub-prime, he also wishes to use this loan on a mere consumption expenditure rather than investment purposes. Automatically, the interest amount is now increased appropriately by rating the borrowers risk accordingly. Venkateshwara’s repayment philosophy also seems a bit dubious. Based upon this wedding, he intended to set up a temple where people could worship him, and thereby pay off his debt.

Well, to cut a long story short, due to low regulation, Kuber bank did make the loan to this sub-prime borrower, albeit at an interest rate that he considered was appropriate for such a high risk loan. As it turned out, Mr. Venkata’s temple was a spectacular commercial success, raking in over Rs. 500 crores a year (approximately INR 5 Billion).

But that is not quite enough. From the records that mythology provides us, this only counts as payment towards the interest portion, so that Mr. Venkateshwara stays out of the term “Stressed Asset”! So Mr. Venkateshwara, inspite of having fantastic cash flows is still indebted. If records are to be believed, he will only be able to pay it off at the end of the universe itself!

On the other hand, about a 1000 kilometres away, we have the example of Mr. Siddivinayak. An astute god, based out of India’s commercial capital, Mumbai, he has access to the finest financial consultants (the ones who believe that cash is king) in the world. Having been exposed to the business world’s ups and downs, he maintains a low level of financial leverage, ensuring that his debts to the Kuber Bank are always promptly paid off. As a result, although his revenues from his temple are at a comparitively paltry Rs. 50 Crores, he is comfortably in cash.

So there ends this lesson from mythology.

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Ganeshji — Forest Deity to Forest Cutey Friday, Sep 14 2007

Tomorrow marks Ganesh Chaturthi, a rather big day in the Indian festival season. To Indians, the elephant headed god needs little introduction. His face and features make him the most well known and recognizable deity in a rather crowded pantheon.

My mother insists that I do 108 rounds around the local Ganesh Temple whenever I lose something. No matter how much I claim its statistical in nature, I have to admit that I generally recover said item once I do the 108 (More likely it was because my mother began to search more seriously once finished my duty!).

So, on the eve of Ganesh Chaturthi, lets look at the evolution of the cutest Indian god. Was he always the cute chubby kid of Indian mythology?

Not really…in fact, from the original mythos of Ganapathi, he is hardly a simple god. With the tusk of an elephant and a reputation that he had to be propitiated before any action could be taken, he was the original extortionist. Pay me…or else! And if you were a tribal chap with only a wooden stick for a weapon, a 9 foot tall 10 tonne elephant is NOT cute and cuddly. Big and dangerous is more appropriate.

However, as the ages passed, he seems to have ameliorated his bad attitude. Soon from just another forest god, he was roped into the Indian Mythological Pantheon. Legend has it that he was created by the goddess Parvati as her guardian of privacy. I guess he was the first firewall ever made then. Unfortunately, her husband Shiva could have then been thought of as the first hacker, because annoyed by some random kid who prevented him from meeting his wife, he hacked the boys head off. Of course, this cheesed off Parvati, who promised divine retribution to her erring husband. A chastened Shiva ran out, and got the head of the first animal he found…which happened to be an elephant, and thus the ganapathi whom we know and love came to being.

Of course in Hinduism, there are 10 stories for everything. And the one that I heard about Ganapati was rather different. In that story, there was a god Shani who said that looking at the baby was bad for the baby’s health. Parvati told him that it was a pile of Balderash and insisted that Shani take a look at her pride and joy. Unfortunately, Shani was right, and the kids head came off as soon as he looked at it. Thankfully for all concerned, Vishnu (the third of the trinity for the unenlightened) managed to get a spare head that he was hiding and replaced it with no one complaining too much. (Except perhaps for the elephant donated the head)

Ganeshji is portrayed as being the custodian of knowledge and the arts….Its hard seeing a fat chap like him dance…but then, there must be some perks to being a god! He is also known as a fast typist and wrote down the Mahabharatha for Ved Vyasa when the chap needed a chap who could type at 120 words per minute.

Today Ganeshji is a far cry from the forest deity of 5000 years ago. He is the darling of the masses, and if he were trademarked, his image would fetch great royalty revenues for the companies that use his image. Everybody likes this cute god who rides a mouse rather than a lion, and who always removes obstacles from the truly devoted.

Is Ganeshji Married? Depends on which side of the Vindhyas you were born on. I always thought that he was the original bachelor boy. But it turns out he has two wives, who are represented by knowledge and discrimination. But down south the whole knowledge and discrimination thing are taken as a metaphor rather than real living supermodels. So I guess the question is yet to be satisfactorily answered.

There are more myths than I can count, and besides I am running out of space and time on this post, so I will leave it here.

Postscript:

Apparently, if you eat only dried fruits and other such stuff on the day prior to Ganesh Chaturthi you are guaranteed a good husband (Thanks Deepti for this info). I guess that finding a good wife is harder, so all us bachelor boys…no such luck. I guess we have to do the old trial and error routine.

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