840/- DD 1000 /-

A long line of people standing outside the wall of the US consulate (USEFI, if it is still called that) in what was then Madras, now Chennai... needless to say, a long long time ago.

A 20 year old boy who entered the queue at 5:30 AM (people had told him to go early) only to find that there were already over 100 people in the line to get a Visa the next morning.

We are talking early nineties where you had to go with a bunch of documents, be within the first 200 people in the line, be screened, be interviewed, pay fees and then get a Visa stamp later that afternoon.

If you had a scholarship and all your papers, chances are you were directly called to the counter to pay money and skip the interview part, provided you managed to get in that morning. All you needed was the right applications, the documents (I-120 or whatever.. ), your passport and a DD (Demand Draft) drawn to an exact amount of 840 Rupees for the entry fee. No DD meant, no entry into the gates!

The US consulate taught you very early on that "Money = Possile Entry. No Money = NO Entry", be it the consulate or the country. Capitalism 101..

Yours truly had the DD. In fact the documents were checked and rechecked multiple times as there was nothing else to do in the line from 5:30 AM to 9:00AM under the sodium vapor yellow light. There was also the constant checking of the pockets to make sure that the Visa fee of 3000+ rupees was still there!

A PSBB dude called Guru was behind me and we did some idle chit chatting. He was worried that he would be rejected for various reasons. I was more worried about losing the 840 Rupees. The girls in the line came prepared with magazines to read. Some folks in the line ahead were drivers, helpers, servant maids for the pampered chosen ones who came later in the morning in their fancy cars, all dressed up to take the place of the servants who had slept on the pavement the night before and that showed you another face of Capitalism..

Have servant, you dont have to wait on the pavement yourself. No servant, you have to!

The best part was the third glorious glimpse of capitalism from that very same pavement. This line of almost 300 people... wait, did we just read 300?

Yes. They would only allow 200 people in, but 300 would line up hoping that some of the folks in the line would be rejected for improper documents, stress burnout, sickness, servant reaching the gates before the real applicant, or the MISSING DD!!

Apparently all very common happenings on that line as another seasoned veteran of two attempts later explained to me while waiting inside.

There was one chap who was making a fortune using that line of people.

He had a large drum full of chai/Coffee loaded on the back of a bicyle. He also had bottles of "Bisleri" drinking water hanging from all sides of the plank that he had wedged into the carrier. Then there were magazines, cheetos, etc. all sold at premium pricing to the people who dare not leave the line.

Every now and then he would shout "eightfortydeedeethousandrupees, eightfortydeedeethousandrupeeeeeeeeesssssssss" just like they sell Idly and Vadai in the south Indian railway stations.

At first we did not understand what he was saying. Then we figured out that he was selling Demand Drafts taken in favor of the US Consulate for Rs. 840 with a nice markup. He was selling 840 rupees for 1000.

He would come close to us and say "Saar, DD irukka check pannu saar.. illena ulla vidamaatanga theriyum ille? 4 DD dhan baaki irukku"

(Sir, check if you have your DD.. if you dont have it, they won't let you in. You know that right? I have only 4 DD's left)

This was all round service. He must have made at least 3000 rupees in those 3+ hours with his enterprise. Now that is capitalism for you.

Chances are he is a CEO by now and he never had to sit on any pavement to get his Visa...

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The have's and the have nots!

In a strange dream concocted by lingering memories from the previous day, I may have found some correlations, which may not be worth much. It does make one question the law of averages!

In many companies that I know (personal experience or through friends and relatives), they tend to have an evaluation of employees (or ranking) and based on the ranking the top performers, the average and the bottom lists, are generated. The top get rewarded during the good times and the bottom get shafted during the bad times.

Imagine this being extrapolated to every company, every employee, be it the public or private sector, across countries. In a way this happens wherever there is capitalism. (Socialist, communist people may not be going through this. Guessing that based on my two month stint in a Durgapur Steel Plant two decades ago!)

Then no wonder there is a shortage of basic amenities in poor countries while there is wastage in other nations.

In a simple boolean representation of the three basic amenities aka food, clothing and shelter (my mom taught me that they are the 3 basic ones when I was a little kid, she did not teach me boolean stuff)

case shelter clothing food have
1 0 0 0 havenot
2 0 0 1 havesome
3 0 1 0 havesome
4 0 1 1 average
5 1 0 0 havesome
6 1 0 1 average
7 1 1 0 average
8 1 1 1 have

In companies it is usually the top and bottom 10% or in some cases top and bottom 15% that is considered as the people to be rewarded or reprimanded.

It looks like in the real world case also the top 12.5% are the haves, the bottom 12.5% are the havenots and in between we have the average folks who have 2/3 and the havesomes which are closer to the havenots who make up another 37.5%.

This kind of explains why the poor countries cannot afford to buy food and feed their people or provide shelter for the disaster hit! They have been given poor performance reviews in a capitalistic world! while the rich countries waste food, buy clothes they dont need because it is on bargain sale, and keep remodeling their shelters at exhorbitant costs!

This may not be profound or anything, but the world seems to be running much like a large corporation and not much can be done about it.As a people, as a country, as a group, you are better off if you are in the top 1/8th as long as the world runs on moolah!

The hamster in my head is overheating. Time to catch some sleep!

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