Friday, November 09, 2007

Cash Burn

Sounds like a press release of a Corporate, isn’t it? Earnings lesser than spends and hence cash burn! Well if it is about my own finances and I am perennially in a state of cash burn. And most of the times, I can never afford to buy stuff in cash, hence use credit cards. :)) So there is no fun in talking about it! Mine is a story of increasing equity and market value on paper which I will encash one day and become a millionaire. Well atleast that’s what I dream about.

This is almost a literal cash burn I am talking about. The crackers for Diwali! As a kid, I was no different; terribly fascinated by the crackers and wait for the day my dad would buy crackers. There used to be a rivalry among us friends on who gets the maximum value of crackers that Diwali. As usual figures will be inflated on claims, but the litmus test comes on the D day. There had been silly instances of getting up early and sneaking around to gather the paper rolls that are left over by others who burst crackers and leave it in front of your house to substantiate your inflated claims. At some stage, the desire on Diwali was more about wearing new clothes and checking out what the girls wear.

Then there was this gap if around 15 years, till my first one found awareness about crackers. And that is what is creating the cash burn. Life those days was simple in terms of buying crackers too. Now the choice is too much and at the end of the day all of them create a terrible noise or a firework display in different forms. And this year, it is Chinese invasion too. The simple Sivakasi crackers are now made in technical collaboration with Chinese. Good thing out of that is the rockets are getting shorter. Apart from that it is only a question paying more money for the same stuff. One of the most ridiculed MRP’s in the country is on the cracker boxes. Invariably it is sold at any price ranging from 30% of the MRP to the MRP itself, depending on the gullibility of the buyers. No idea why the government hasn’t regulated this so far.

And these days, when I see those left over paper rolls they all look like money to me. But then certain things in life never change. The gleam in the kids’ eyes, the breathing of only crackers, crackers till the D day arrives and the rare energy level before sunrise and the sudden discovery of siblings on phone. Nothing changes.

Only thing is that you wish it would have been better to have stayed as a kid only. Sometimes growth in intelligence is a pain like the great poet Bharathiar laments to God.

1 comment:

The Buddha said...

Maams, after reading your post "Cash Burn", i thought of sharing the link to a very old blog post on Diwali I wrote

http://gouthamv.blogspot.com/2006/10/once-upon-time-in-india.html