FOOTLOOSE
I read a report the other day that whiskey drinkers will believe anything and I believed it because at the time I was reading it I had a glass of single malt on the rocks within arm’s reach.
Given the way the media has developed over the last decade or so I could safely say that without whiskey we would have remained firmly in the dark ages. It’s amazing what whiskey can do to an industry. We believe most of the stuff said by a politician, bureaucrat or activist. No prizes for guessing why? It’s the whiskey. Of course we do not believe anything and everything, but whiskey makes it easier.
Take the growth rate for instance. The GDP was growing at a rate of around 5 per cent, which is not a happy prospect. The Modi government was not pleased with it either. I mean when you ride to power on the rath of development, you want to give the people, like 8 per cent growth, even if it’s not real.
Now rejigging figures is not a difficult task. Getting everybody else to sign on is like climbing Mt Everest without thermal underwear. This is where the whiskey comes in. I can’t confirm this, but I am told that the first draft of the ‘8 per cent growth white paper’ was written by a financial expert who sat up late one night with some paper, a pen and a bottle of Johnny Walker.
Then, the 8 per cent growth paper was whetted by a hard-nosed bureaucrat whose initial reaction was, “This is utter rubbish.” Two large pegs of Chivas Regal later he reportedly said, “This does make sense after all.” And four pegs later he said, “I think I lost a page, but it still makes sense,” and laughed.
The paper eventually reached the desk of one of the many thick-skulled financial advisors to the central government. These chaps are usually former civil servants who will not put their signature to paper unless they are absolutely sure and eight months have elapsed. But the government was in a hurry to show its policies were working.
When the thick-skulled financial advisor read the paper, minus page six, he reportedly said, “whosoever wrote this needs to be shot at the next Republic Day parade”. Then, on the advice of his assistant, he re-read the paper but after a stiff peg of Vat 69, and said, “okay, there is no need to shoot the fellow, but I would like to hang him at Jantar Mantar.”
It was obvious that in some difficult cases more whiskey is needed. It was two in the morning when the advisor re-read the paper but after he had imbibed half the bottle. He reportedly told his assistant who was dozing on the opposite chair, “This thing makes more sense when you read it upside down.”
“Some progress at last,” said the assistant who, despite being in the sleep zone had managed to hold on to a glass of whiskey and soda.
“So where do I sign this,” the thick-skulled financial advisor asked, “up or down?”
After it was cleared, the achhe-din-are-here press conference was held and reporters were told about how the GDP was growing at seven per cent and not eight per cent as in the white paper. Apparently, someone somewhere did not get his quota of whiskey.
Did the media lap it up?
No, because the press conference was followed by dinner and cocktails, not whiskey. So nobody believed it. But everybody ran the story all the same, because that’s the least the media can do for dinner and cocktails.
