But, the writer wants to know, is there a specific timeframe for 'Achhe Din' or will it be an indefinite wait?
When Forbes India magazine called me up, I thought it was to make fun of me. In fact, I did hear derisive laughter in the background, only to be told that the noise was actually coming from a coffee maker which, though in working condition, had stopped making coffee years ago. When, however, they refused to be sarcastic, I decided to change tack. My exact words were (said in the gentlest way possible): “Please don’t call up 44-year-old men who still live with their parents. You should be ashamed of yourself! You’re Forbes, for God’s sake!” Then I proceeded to give them the numbers of all the cricketers and NGOs I knew. Yet Forbes India apparently favours the brave. They persisted. In fact, I was told to write a column on what to expect from 2016.
I dug deep into my reservoirs of financial experience as a consultant to my eight-year-old daughter; a consultancy that consisted wholly of planning how to buy and hide a Rs 20-packet of Lay’s masala chips without her mother (my sometime wife) finding out, every Saturday. I then asked them who else was writing for them. The answer was shocking: CEOs from across the country. Not a single leftist, taxi driver, foreigner, or startup guy who went bust was even considered.
So I decided under duress to write this piece, so as to represent the non-CEOs as well as the left-handed and homosexual communities, both of which are overlooked in business circles. Please note that I’ve researched all my findings with my three associates, Fred I Kent, Lee Iacocca and Kautilya himself. So, don’t you dare contradict me.
At the outset we have to look back at 2015, the year that was renamed as ‘Achhe Din’. That’s ancient Prakrit for the number 2015, I’m told by various men in oversized brown shorts.
You and I both know that didn’t quite happen. Why? I’ll let you tackle that answer, aunty. No? Okay, the reason is simple: If we had ‘Achhe Din’, I wouldn’t be writing this, you wouldn’t be reading this and Forbes India’s year-ender would just have been cover to cover in figures. Hour-glass figure that is. Yup, we’d all be celebrating. Me in Amritsar, you in Switzerland, where you’d combine, shall we say, business with pleasure? So let’s not lose too much sweat, er, equity over this. It wasn’t a horrid year. Just wasn’t a great one. I’m still with the same wife and children that I started the year with, for instance. In the spirit of compromise, and 75 percent because of rabid fear about the present intolerance levels, we declared 2015 an ‘achhe-ish din’ year.
(This story appears in the 22 January, 2016 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)