In the Wonderland of Life Insurance!

HUMOUR

 

 

In the Wonderland	Pawan Verma takes a humorous dig at the functioning
	of Life insurance companies
of Life Insurance
	with a special focus on the role of actuaries.

 

- Seeing Beyond the Mundane

 

For all the uninitiated and the under-privileged who have been deprived of the fun of working in a Life insurance company, I would like to present a few glimpses of the same for their benefit. Have you ever imagined what a Life insurance company looks like? Let me suggest that you may visualize a typical Life insurance company as a bus transporting passengers to their respective destinations. There is this Sales Director who, immediately after sighting the bus, jumps into it, grabs the steering wheel and starts pressing the accelerator, while the Chief Underwriter keeps on pressing her foot constantly on the brake and the Compliance Head keeps on honking incessantly. While all this is happening, the Appointed Actuary keeps continuously looking into the rear view mirror and giving directions how to move forward.

In this entire melee, the Conductor, i.e. the salesman, keeps on enticing all the passengers outside to get inside the moving bus, irrespective of their destinations. However, he does not bother to stop the bus even if some passengers fall down from the moving bus accidentally unless they have paid the fare, i.e. the premium.

 

Who is the Actuary?

While all the actors in this play are familiar players, the Actuary is a relatively unknown face to the outside world as the tribe is mostly confined to the Life insurance industry, where he is treated like God. In fact, the only thin line of difference between God and an actuary is that God never thinks that He is an actuary. The actuaries are in fact, bright individuals who are professionally fond of handling figures – but of the excel sheet variety only. Their interests in vital statistics also remain limited to those relating to the insurance companies only. In fact, the literature on actuarial science provides some interesting role models one of which relates to a tall, young and handsome actuary who had two beautiful wives living separately from each other. As the story goes, the young actuary would often lie to them, telling each of them that he was with the other, and thus finding out time to go to office to do some actuarial modelling. 

 

However, all said and done, the role of an actuary is the backbone of the Life insurance industry. They are the ones who, with their analysis of the past trends and future projections, tell a Life insurance company in advance how many of its customers are going to die in a particular year. But, before you misunderstand it, let me clarify that they are different from the mafia, as the mafia goes a step further and decides who are the ones that are going to die! The actuaries are also different from the mafia in the sense that you can negotiate with the mafia and get some concessions from them.

 

The senior and experienced ones among the actuaries are appointed by the insurance companies and designated as “Appointed Actuaries”. As the role demands, they are expected to report both to their company head and the regulator. But being responsible professionals, most of the time, they report into themselves

only.  Their job is to keep a constant watch on the financial health of the insurance companies. However, as a result of the constantly falling top lines and rising expense lines year after year, most of these Appointed Actuaries have turned into disappointed actuaries today.

The Theory of Probability

Coming to predicting the future, unlike the astrologers, the actuaries do their jobs scientifically and get paid for it handsomely as well. They work on the theory of probability and by analyzing the historical data and trends; predict the probability of the occurrence of similar trends in future as well. As students of the actuarial science, the actuaries would have an absolute belief in the theory of probability and they would not allow any unknown factors, emerging trends or unexplained possibilities to impact their judgment. You must have heard the story of the old and veteran actuary who had a sudden chest pain while walking down the staircase. Suspecting it to be a heart attack, he immediately jumped down the staircase after doing a quick calculation that as per past data, the probability of a person having a heart attack while falling down from a staircase was much less than the probability of a person having a heart attack while climbing down the staircase. The rest is part of the sad history as the actuarial books have recorded the incident as one of the rare exceptions when the theory did not work.

Handling Complications

With their expertise in developing and handling complex actuarial models, analysing complexities with speed and accuracy becomes just the second nature of the actuaries. And they are never reluctant to showcase their skills. It happened once that an actuary was travelling in a train with a farmer. True to his nature, the actuary was boasting of his mental faculties trying to impress the farmer. As the train passed a flock of sheep in a meadow, the farmer asked, “Can you count the sheep in the flock and tell me?” The actuary looked at the flock and said with a winning smile, "There are 1,159 sheep out there." The farmer was impressed as he said, "Incredible! By chance, I happen to be the owner of the flock and I know that they are exactly 1,159. But how did you count them so quickly?" The actuary answered, "Easy, I just counted the number of legs and divided it by four.”

 

Camouflaged by Simplicity

 

The ever-increasing inclination to handling complexities, however, deprives the actuaries of the ability of handling simple and mundane situations. And that becomes possibly the only weakness that they possess as a tribe. A friend of mine told me the story of a young actuary who had come to seek admission to an advanced actuarial course. As the queue was long, the clerk told him to go to the end of the line. The young man came back five minutes later and said he couldn't because someone else was already there.

 

The situation is no different with experienced and qualified actuaries as well. Quite often they get cheated by small-time street vendors and shop keepers because these votaries of higher maths tend to forget the lower maths involving addition, subtraction, etc. I was myself witness to a scene when I once walked into the actuarial department of my office. What I saw was simply mind-boggling. There were three young actuarial interns, busily involved with something in the centre of the room. As I went closer, I saw one of them was holding a long board upright, the second was steadying a chair on a desk while the third intern was standing on the chair placed on the desk. He had one end of a tape measure and the first student had the other. Amused, I enquired what they were doing. They answered in a chorus, "We're trying to measure this board." Perplexed, I said, "Why don’t you lay it down on the floor and measure it?" They said, "We have already measured its length, now we are measuring its height.”

 

Mixing like Oil & Water

Though extremely dedicated and hard-working, the actuaries are often the most misunderstood professionals in the industry simply because of the inability of others to understand what they are doing. It is a well-known fact in the industry that oil and water mix better than actuaries and salesmen. While it is extremely difficult for a salesman to say “no”, an actuary would find it almost impossible to say “yes” to any proposal. While the actuary would constantly blame the Sales Director that he does not sell the product but sells the company itself, the Sales Director would have you believe that the actuaries do a useless job and can be dispensed with altogether.

Nothing illustrates this relationship better than the story of the Sales Director of an insurance company who had crash-landed in a paddy field after a plane accident. As he regained consciousness lying in the field, he looked around and asked an onlooker, “Where am I?” Startled, the onlooker asked him, “Are you the Sales Director of any company?” “Yes”, said the Sales Director, “but how did you know this?”

 

The onlooker laughed, “Well, your question reminds me of the eternal refrain I have been hearing from the successive sales directors of my company with reference to their targets – where am I? But, forget it”, he added, “let me help you with your query. You have crash-landed here after a plane accident. You are lying in a large paddy field which is ripe for harvesting…” Startled, the Sales Director sprang up on his feet and asked, “Are you an Actuary?”

 

Now, it was the onlooker’s turn to be surprised. He said, “Yes, but how did you come to know this?”  “Elementary, my friend,” said the Sales Director, “as usual, the information provided by you is absolutely correct, but thoroughly useless”.

 

Love-Hate Relationships

Professional jealousy and rivalries also are the factors why actuaries usually develop a love-hate relationship with the other professionals within the industry, Underwriters, in particular. While together they would espouse common causes, they would leave no opportunity to undermine the other once they get the opportunity.

This love-hate relationship is amply illustrated by the story of the two underwriters of a Life insurance company who were going to attend a conference along with their actuary. Travelling in a plane, the underwriters had taken the window and the middle seats. As the actuary came in, he settled down in the aisle seat next to them, kicked off his shoes, wiggled his toes and closed his eyes. After a while, the underwriter in the window seat moved and said, "Let me get up and get a soda for myself." "No problem," said the actuary, "I'll get it for you."

 

While he was gone, the underwriter picked up the actuary's shoe and spat in it. When he returned with the soda, the other underwriter said, "That looks wonderful, I think I'll have one too." Again, the actuary obligingly went to fetch it and while he was away, the other underwriter picked up the other shoe and spat in it. The Actuary returned and they all sat back, discussed business and enjoyed the flight. As the plane was landing, the Actuary slipped his feet into his shoes and knew immediately what had happened.

 

"How long must this go on?"  he asked, "This fighting between our professions? This hatred? This animosity? This spitting in shoes and pissing in sodas?"

(The author is former COO of Star Union Dai-ichi Life Insurance. The author undertakes that views expressed are his own; and that the article has been written in a lighter vein with malice to none.)

 

(First Published in the June 2014 issue of the IRDA Journal)

 

Theirs Not to Reason Why... Theirs But to Comply & Die

In a lighter vein, Pawan Verma narrates the travails of dealing with compliance at various stages of business in the domain of Life Insurance.

When I was invited to contribute an article for the current issue of the IRDA Journal, focusing on Regulatory Compliance, my immediate impulse was to have an interaction with the industry experts so as to develop a comprehensive and inclusive view on the subject before writing something meaningful. Following the impulse, I set up an interview with the MD & CEO of a life insurance company. Warming up for the discussion over a cup of coffee, I asked him,

“What keeps you awake at nights these days?”

The CEO was quick in his response, “Oh! I sleep like a baby.”

I was literally flummoxed and flabbergasted, wondering how could the CEO of a life insurance company sleep like a baby in these turbulent times when the top lines are sliding down day by day like the Indian Rupee and the expense lines are soaring up month after month like the Indian inflation, while the bottom lines are discovering new bottoms every Quarter. Sensing my confusion, he immediately clarified,

“Oh yes, I sleep like a baby…waking up every two hours and crying… worrying about any regulations that my guys might have violated today accidentally and for which I was going to be hauled up by the Regulators the next morning.”

“But a sensitive IRDA would understand the problems of a CEO”, I said hesitatingly.

“You see, it’s not IRDA”, he continued, “We are really living in difficult times. After we got liberated from the British Raj, we aimed to build up the Panchayati Raj. But, what we got in return was the License Raj. Unfortunately, as we threw away the shackles of the License Raj in 1991, we got saddled with the Compliance Raj. There’s no escaping the Raj. Even though we may want to give up on the Raj, the Raj is not giving up on us.”

Listening to him, I could realize the difficult times we were living in. I remembered the good old days when as a college student I had walked into a bank branch to withdraw some money. As the teller had some problems with the signature of the young lady ahead of me in the queue, he requested her to identify herself. The lady immediately took out a mirror from her vanity bag, looked into it and declared innocently, “Yes, it’s me only”. The teller smiled and gave her the money. I am sure, if it were present times, the same teller would have insisted on a photo Id card and a residence proof, as the minimum requirement.

 We Also Sell Insurance

However, not to be overtaken by pessimism, I decided to talk to some other professionals in the industry and met the Distribution Head of another life insurance company. I asked him what was on top of his agenda these days. He explained that he was running an extensive program to train his entire sales force. Perplexed, I asked him, “Yours is a pretty old company. I thought you would have already trained your sales staff over the period of time.”

He was candid, “You know, while insurance is a mundane and static subject, compliance is a very dynamic issue, acquiring new dimensions every day. Hence we continue organizing comprehensive compliance training programs very frequently.”

“That means your sales must be looking up…”, I said.

“Oh! We also sell insurance… when we are free from compliance,” he replied, “but contrary to your expectations, our sales are going downhill.”

“I don’t understand this...more agent meetings should obviously translate into higher sales.”

“You see, earlier my agents were able to sell, unmindful of the implications of the statements they were making to the customers. But, having undergone the in-depth compliance training, they are now careful about what they say to the customers and how they say it. It has obviously been impacting our sales.”

“There must be some better way of addressing the situation…” I mused.

“No Mr Verma, I had always thought that one could reason out the rationale behind the compliance circulars and follow them in spirit, and thus compliance and sales could go together. But no, that doesn’t work. Oil & water mix better than sales & compliance. Today, we are in a situation where theirs not to reason why, theirs but to comply and die.”

The Cost of Compliance

I was lucky to get the CFO and the Appointed Actuary together in one room in the next company. The CFO was brutally frank, “The cost of compliance today is too prohibitive to run a profitable business.”  The Appointed Actuary however, was more practical and down-to-earth and thought that one must comply with the regulations without ever questioning the rationale behind the same.

“Once we added some more information in a regulatory report than asked for,” explained the wise man, “but we were hauled up for tampering with the sacrosanct formats created by the Regulator.”

Evolution of Compliance Culture

It is not that everybody in the system is equally unhappy and pessimistic. Compliance has brought happiness to a lot of people in the industry as well. In one of the companies, I met an old lady who had been doing the compliance function for ages. She was highly positive about the way the compliance culture in the industry has evolved over the years. She recollected her first day in the company and the HR Head’s words,

“Here’s your appointment letter as the Compliance Officer. Find out what it means and do it.”

As per her, compared to the past, compliance was taken much more seriously in the company now. But there was another reason for her happiness. As she put it,

“Earlier, I always had the problem finding out what to do next. But thanks to IRDA, I don’t have to do the thinking any longer. They do the thinking and tell us what do, when to do and how to do. Moreover, now I feel more secure about my job because there is enough to do and it is sure to be there irrespective of the business cycles.”

The Man at the Centre

However, my journey seemed to be incomplete without meeting the man at the centre – the Principal Compliance Officer (PCO). While talking to the different functional heads, I had always enquired what they thought of the PCO. They were unanimous in their opinion that they had developed an instant dislike for the PCO in the very first meeting…only to save time later.

The meeting with the PCO however, was very enlightening. A firm stickler for compliance, he sincerely believed that a stricter compliance regime was the solution for all the ills of the industry.

“Look at the level of mis-selling happening in the industry. I am of the firm opinion that every insurance sale must be handled by at least three agents – the first to canvass the customer, the second to verify if the product was explained to the customer properly and the third one to certify that the due sales processes were followed in conducting the sale.”

“But the cost and the productivity…” I wondered.

“Forget the cost, productivity and business numbers. Once the compliance processes are fully in place, these mundane things will take care of themselves over a period of time.”

Disinterested Directors

Pondering over the issue, I shared my thoughts with my wife that I needed to talk to some Director on the Board of a company as I believed that the compliance culture in a company had to be driven from the top and it was the top management alone which could remove the bottlenecks within the system.

Not always very kind to my thoughts, she immediately shot back, “Look, in most of the bottles that I have seen, the neck is always at the top.”

Even though clean-bowled by the googly, I refused to give up batting. I set up a meeting with the Independent Director on the Board of a company and asked him what he thought was the Board’s role in driving the compliance culture within the company. Sounding like a management guru, he said,

 

“I agree with you. The compliance culture in the industry has to be driven from the top – by the Board of the company. But we need to bring in systemic changes to make the Boards functional and effective. You see, as the institution of Independent Directors has failed to deliver, you need to develop on the American pattern, a cadre of Disinterested Directors, who will not have any fiduciary interest in the company at all and thus will be able to drive the compliance culture.”

The high-level wisdom completely left me dumb-founded. I was wondering if our Directors were not already “disinterested” enough – interested to the extent of their sitting fees only. Otherwise, what could explain the sorry state of affairs in the industry?

Taking It to the Next Level

My attempts to get the regulator’s perspective on the subject were frustrated because regulators all over the world are known for their reticence. They only react after you do the act. Even though I don’t share the cynicism, seasoned industry observers are of the opinion that across the globe, the regulators’ studied silence on controversial matters  and refusal to give advance rulings on critical issues are effective weapons to perpetuate their authority. If they explain in advance the rationale behind the regulations they make, will they not look like ordinary mortals like us? Who will be afraid of them in that case and how will they impose penalties and generate funds?

However, it was partly because of my own persuasiveness and partly because of the openness of our own industry regulator, that I was able to get a few regulatory sound bites on the subject. On the condition of anonymity, a very senior official dealing with the issue told me about his dissatisfaction with the state of affairs in the realm of regulatory compliance.

“You see”, he said, “we are still at a very primitive stage in terms of enforcing compliance in our business operations and we owe it to the advanced world to take it to the next level without any further delay.”

“But, Sir, I think our policies on Corporate Governance, AML, etc. are very well conceived and are right in place. Where’s the problem?”

“That’s the problem…that’s the problem, Mr Verma, with all of you. You guys are never able to think beyond the mundane and the ordinary. The need of the hour is to take compliance to the next level - beyond the fore walls of your organization. Are you ensuring that the vendors who work for you and the suppliers, who supply you, say pen and paper, are compliant? Are you ensuring that they don’t use child labour, that they conduct their own businesses in a fair and transparent manner?”

“These are noble thoughts sir, but difficult to implement”, I muttered hesitatingly.

“Not at all”, he countered, “If you want to follow global trends and remain relevant in a globally integrated economy, you don’t have much of a choice. Tell me, as a good corporate citizen, should you not stop doing business with a supplier who does not conduct his own business in a fair and transparent manner?”

I nodded in acquiescence, living up to my innate wisdom of never ever arguing with a regulator. However, my confusion had got confounded manifold – what were my options if I found that the electricity company supplying me power was non-compliant? Or, for that matter, could I refuse to be regulated by a regulator if I felt that the regulator was not conducting his business in a fair and transparent manner?

Customer - the Helpless King

Having been sufficiently enlightened by the industry experts on the various dimensions of regulatory compliance, I thought of talking to someone to whom the entire industry professes to serve – customer, the king. But I hesitated…could someone’s experience on regulatory compliance be different from mine as a customer? I remembered the day the courier had knocked at my door to deliver my credit card.

“I have brought your credit card, but, I need to check your Id before I can hand it over to you”, he had said after asking my name.

Not liking his stance, I said, “Look here, you landed at my doors looking for me. You must trust me that I am the right person.”

“No Sir”, he insisted, “I can’t hand it over to you unless I see your Id proof.”

Fairly agitated within, I shouted at him, “How dare you ask me to prove my identity in my own house?”

The courier boy was calm but firm, “No point arguing it, Sir. This has something to do with regulatory compliance. You show me the Id or I take the card back.”

I gave him a nasty look, conveying “don’t mess with the Customer – the King”, but simultaneously discovered that my right hand was helplessly extended to hand over the Id proof.

The writer is former COO of a life insurance company. He is available at pawan.verma@rediffmail.com

(First Published in IRDA Journal September 2013)

The Dirty Pictures

Pawan Verma

With the clock striking 12.00 and yet the TV screen not looking any dirtier than earlier, I heaved a sigh of relief. Possibly, the horrified nation also breathed easy, as the Sony TV was prevented from publicly displaying the Dirty Pictures of our award winning heroine Vidya Balan, which was nothing but a re-enactment of the Mahabharat’s episode of the disrobing of the royal queen Draupadi. All the principal players were also in place, playing their assigned roles. Our Bhishma Pitamaha did not add his Vani of protest – don’t read Advani here – on the planned outrage, while our Dhritarashtra remained “maun” as usual.

But at the end, it turned out to be a strong re-affirmation of the Geeta’s message, “Yada yada hi dharmasya glanir bhavati bharate….” So, if there was one Sony determined to act like Dushshashana, there was another Soni, Ambika - but not from the Amba, Ambika, Ambalika family – who frustrated the efforts of all those who were involved in this dastardly act. Like Krishna, the Minister for Information & Broadcasting appeared on the scene at the last moment and prevented the modesty of our national heroine from being outraged in broad day light in the presence of a global audience. The Minister, however, decreed that the Channel was free to do it late in the night if it so desired.

Come to think of it, what was involved here was not merely the modesty of a woman; the scheduled global TV Premiere of the movie had threatened the very moral and social fabric of our society and could have led to a national catastrophe with a long term impact. It amounted to invading the sacred space of our homes with the dirty pictures of a voluptuous lady, seducing a number of men one after the other. The wives would have discovered what usually goes inside the dirty minds of their husbands once they would have seen them leering at Ms Balan’s un-balan moves. The children would have learnt a new Vidya, which they were not privy to so far.

We must indeed be grateful to the Central government for saving us from such a disgrace. It goes without saying that in a welfare state like ours, it is the duty of the government to protect the citizens from all sorts of invasions, including those which threaten their moral and ethical sensibilities. Successive governments have been performing this onerous task without exception. Long back, it was the British Govt. which took upon itself the white man’s burden of civilizing the browns and developing their cultural values in keeping with the times. Our Brown Sahibs later on inherited this responsibility from their British predecessors and have been carrying out this responsibility very consistently. In line with the same, a few years back, our earlier I & B Minister, Ms. Sushama had decreed that FTV could not be trusted with the ‘Swaraj’ all the TV channels were enjoying at that time, in view of the dirty pictures FTV was adept in showing on its channel round the clock. Hence, she had deputed two senior officials to conduct a 24*7 monitoring of the channel and prevent the Indian minds from being corrupted by its influence.

The current move of the central government is completely in keeping with this tradition. In fact, ever since it came to power, it has been consistently trying to ensure preventing the release of all kinds of dirty pictures, like the ones shot on the sets of 2G and CWG, directed and choreographed by Raja, Kalmadi and the likes of them. The Coal-gate, the Mining-gate and the Porn-gate are the other shining examples of how both the state and the central governments have displayed a singleness of purpose and a rare unity of approach in withstanding the pressures of elements like the CAG, media and other mis-directed individuals who go to the extent of using laws like the RTI to put these dirty pictures for public display. What a noble purpose! What a heroic act! True, if the government can be pro-active about protecting the modesty of a woman, it must be appreciated for being equally emphatic about protecting the modesty of the men involved in these episodes. There can’t be any scope for a gender bias here.

However, there is another dimension of the whole issue which is being consistently ignored and which needs to be raised as it involves extreme cruelty being perpetrated on a set of individuals. Think of the men in the I & B ministry and other bodies like the Censor Boards etc, who have to work tirelessly, watching the dirty pictures all the time to prevent them from corrupting the minds of ordinary mortals like you and me. Even though they are made of sterner stuff, ultimately their minds will also get corrupted by the constant and incessant exposures to the dirty pictures. While we must recognize their sacrifice for the nation, it amounts to cruelty on them and on their sensibilities. Hence, I suggest that this burden must be shared by a larger section of the society. I therefore, recommend adoption of a National Rotation Policy, which would entrust the responsibility of performing this task on every citizen by rotation. As a humble citizen of this country, I offer myself to be among the initial volunteers for this job and thereby, contribute to the nation and to the society.

http://www.facebook.com/

Tax Us More, Dear FM

Pawan Verma

Dear Pranab Da,

As you were reading out the pages of your budget speech in the Parliament last week, with me and my family members listening in rapt attention, a strange sense of enlightenment was dawning upon all of us. Till this moment I was thinking that I was a free individual with all my rights and liberty in place, my family felt that I belonged to them entirely, while my wife believed that she owned me absolutely. However, listening to your budget speech made it absolutely clear that with the Income Tax and the Service Tax put together, at least 42.9% of me was absolutely owned by the Govt. of India. Since I was obliged to pay a good part of my earnings to the GOI, by implication the GOI had absolute right over my working life and thus, I was nothing more than a bonded labour of the Govt. of India.

As you moved from the Income Tax provisions to the Service Tax, there was a greater enlightenment. The fact that you raised Service Tax from 10% to 12% and widened its scope, without giving any reason whatsoever, brought home one of the basic realities of our existence - the fact the you had absolute right over our earnings and that the Right to Property, enshrined in our constitution as a Fundamental Right, arose only after you had taken your share out of the same. In fact, we are so grateful to you, Sir, for your kindness that whatever the Aam Aadmi earns today, a small portion of the same is left to him for his subsistence. And this kindness has continued year-after-year.

In the face of the fact that you have complete control over our destiny, I admire the sincerity and modesty with which you have been putting forth your taxation proposals before the nation in successive years. In fact, we should be grateful to you that through your tax proposals you provide the citizens of this country, an ideal opportunity of earn for the government even without passing the Civil Services exams. Come to think of it, very few of us have the wisdom to realize that taxation today is the greatest symbol of the democratic and patriotic fibre of our society, wedded to the fundamental principles of equal rights and equal opportunities. Democratic, because any individual, no matter how humble his circumstances, can rise up in life, prevail over his circumstances and become a tax-payer. Patriotic, because for most of us, who remain too busy with our mundane day-to-day activities, taxation provides an ideal opportunity to do something for the nation.

That’s not all. The wise among us do tell us that taxation also provides a great tool for ensuring social justice by allowing those who work, to pay for those who don’t and those who can earn to pay for those who can’t. It doesn’t matter if every Taj Mahal looks like the Qutab Minar after paying the taxes – it is intended to be so for the cause of social justice. In fact, next to death, if there is any leveller, it is taxation alone– the only difference being that death doesn’t kill in instalments and that it does not become more painful every time Parliament meets.

Hence, it is my humble request to you, Sir, not to get influenced by the small minority among us, who do not have any mamta for your budget proposals for levying increasing taxes on the aam aadmi year-after-year. I can assure you that the great majority of us love paying our taxes and thereby, contributing to the nation and its democratic and egalitarian values.

Therefore, having gone through your budget proposals, I have a few suggestions to offer in order to improve our taxation system and ensure compliance by the aam aadmi without feeling any financial burden.

First, I suggest that it should be made compulsory for every married couple to have at least three children. On growing up, while the two of them can pay the taxes, the third can support the family’s livelihood. You may kindly examine if this would need a constitutional amendment or it can be accomplished through a side reference in the budget proposals like the Vodafone case. I do believe that the second one is a much better option.

Secondly, with the expansion of the Service Tax net you have so generously ensured that we do not miss out any opportunity to pay the taxes and thereby serve our nation. However, there is one important area that needs immediate clarification, i.e. supply of labour and manpower services. You will kindly agree that every child born in the country adds to the nation’s labour force, since he has the potential that on growing up, he can become a tax-payer and thereby earn for the government. This area of manpower supply to the country’s labour force has so far remained untaxed.

Hence, most humbly, may I suggest imposition of a new service tax, particularly named as the Valentine Tax, whereby every married couple, who make love to each other, should be taxed? The incidence of taxation will arise every time the couple is blessed with a child.

I am sure, dear Finance Minister, this will have multiple benefits. First, the very idea of imposing a Valentine Tax will increase your support base among Ram Sene, VHP and the likes of them. Secondly, no man worth his honour, will ever dispute the tax or evade paying the same on the plea that it was not his doing.

Sincerely yours


Pawan Verma

Pawan.verma@rediffmail.com

Of Men and Women

Pawan Verma

Life is indeed cruel to men. When they are born, their mothers get compliments and flowers, when they get married, their brides get presents and publicity and when they die; their wives get the sympathy and the insurance money. I sincerely believe that whosoever termed the fair sex as the weaker sex has done an unfair thing since the weaker sex is indeed the stronger sex because of the weakness of the stronger sex for the weaker sex.

The word is full of men who convert this weakness into a life-long bondage, euphemistically called ‘marriage’. Alas, they forget that as bachelors they were very longingly looked upon by the fair sex as ‘a thing of beauty and boy forever’ and they roamed around like a rolling stone that gathers no boss. But, like fools, they rush in into a venture where even angels fear to tread. They are perhaps too innocent to realize that marriage is the name of a game where the man loses his bachelor’s degree and the woman gets her master’s degree.

But different bachelors have different compulsions to walk into this bondage. Sometimes stealing a kiss leads to ‘life imprisonment’ – a perfect example of crime and punishment. Some others walk into this trap after calculating that it is cheaper to marry the girl and keep her home than not to marry and take her out.

But those who marry in haste repent at leisure as well. It is true that marriages are made in heaven but when the couple joins hands on earth, it becomes just another union that defies management. As the resonance of the wedding bells recede into the background the notes of discord start appearing and gradually the ‘better half’ becomes the ‘bitter half’. It does not take long for the man to start wondering what happened to the girl he married and for the girl to wonder what happened to the man she didn’t. But most often the discord happens on account of the average husband’s ambitions to be able to afford what his wife is spending. As it always happens in such cases, the joint account is never over-drawn by the wife; it is always under-deposited by the husband.

Old couples, however, say that such differences between husband and wife are only the spice of conjugal relationships; for, where there is no difference there must be a vast degree of indifference. The harmony arising out of love is the essence that sustains marital happiness. It has certain well-defined secrets. To be happy with a man you must love him a little and understand him a lot. To be happy with a woman you must love her a lot and understand her a little. Mutual trust and confidence is the other touchstone of marital harmony, as every husband expects himself to be his wife’s first love while every wife hopes herself to be her husband’s last romance.

In the ultimate analysis, however, marriage turns out to be an American cafeteria: you choose what you like, and pay for it later. What you pay and how much you pay depends upon your luck. For, it takes quite a bit of luck to make a wife out of a woman. Remember! God created Woman after Man, and ever since then she has been after man.

In the Service of God

Pawan Verma

God is highly disturbed. He surveys the universe and finds everything to be in order. But as he looks around, he finds his own heaven in trouble. Once again, his arch-rival Satan has raised his ugly head and is trying to create problems.

This is not for the first time that Lucifer has raised his head against God. Ever since he was banished from heaven. Satan has been making sporadic attempts to carve out a niche for himself in heaven with the help of his army of devils.

Although repulsed by God every time, His forgiveness has only encouraged Satan to carry out his evil designs time and again. However, this time, Satan is up to some new misadventures. Afraid to challenge God in a direct conflict, he is playing hide and seek and is trying to gain a foot-hold in heaven by infiltrating his evil angels therein.

The crisis has left God in deep emotional distress. Not that there is any dearth of brave soldiers in heaven to take on the challenge of Satan. The heaven is full of brave warriors from all around the world – martyrs from the Vietnam War, Gulf War, Kosovo Conflict, Afghanistan War, Kashmir War etc. They all had been brave soldiers who had fought for their motherland, sacrificed their lives and got a well-deserved place in heaven.

Trained and experienced in all aspects of modern warfare, these warriors can take on the challenge of Satan any moment and drive the infiltrators out of heaven. But God has a conscience problem. These warriors, who had fought wars, excelled in bravery and valor and vanquished their respective enemies, had not always been on the side of truth and justice. They had often been on the sides of the aggressors, killing God’s innocent followers and committing oppression and atrocities on them.

Hence, even though God has been able to marshal only a few warrior angels to fight the mighty army of Satan, He would simply not deploy these tainted warriors in his war against Satan.

As God is brooding over the problem, he gets a glimpse of the Indian soldiers who have marched to heaven after laying down their lives in the Kargil war in Kashmir. These soldiers have left behind tearful eyes and chocked emotions on the earth. And yet here they are marching with their heads high and with a vision and purpose in their eyes.

As the Indian soldiers present themselves before God one by one, they are garlanded and given a salute by the angels. God has been waiting for them. His face brightens up and he cheers them up as they march past in attention.

Major Sarvanan, Sqdn Ldr. Ajay Ahuja, Capt. Aditya Mishra, Rifleman Subhash Ashurbha Samap, Sepoy Madhukar Nikam, Capt. Amol Kalia, Lt. Col. Vishwanathan, Capt. Vikram Batra...the list is endless. These are the brave soldiers full of guts and grit, determination and dedication, valor and bravery, whom God has specifically chosen to lead the war against Satan. For, in addition to defending the honor of their motherland, these solders have always stood for truth and justice, peace and harmony.

Grieve not, therefore, for the brave Indians who have laid down their lives in Kargil, Drass or Batalik. They have bid us the final farewell as they have been commissioned by God to fight a bigger battle. Victory will be decidedly theirs because they are on the side of truth which is God.

Courtesy on the Road

Pawan Verma

From the quizzical look I received from the girl, I was pretty sure that she had got my signals entirely wrong. Driving through the thick of traffic on the Delhi University campus one fine afternoon, as I found the car coming from the opposite direction, stuck up in the middle of the road, I had slowed down and given it a headlight signal – which meant, please cross over.

But it left the young lady driving the vehicle entirely confused. As I moved past after waiting for a few moments, her angry looks made it clear that the damsel in distress was indeed a damsel in distrust.

Unable to decipher the road signal right, she had doubted my intensions to flash the lights on her. But for my wife Neelima sitting by my side, the lady could have charged me with teasing.

The incident reminded me of a similar experience while driving through the streets of Patna. Being an avid supporter of good road sense, I had stopped my car to allow half a dozen school kids, on their way to school, to cross the road. While I fondly remember the gleam in their eyes on this gesture, I still cannot forget the massive protest honking from behind, which my humane gesture had aroused.

Truly, in a society unused to the finer aspects of driving etiquettes, such consternations are quite understandable. The reverse of it is equally true. I very vividly remember, when during my stay at Mauritius, one particular morning, while driving the car as I blew the horn asking for passage, I was dismayed to find that I had created a minor commotion on the road.

Very soon I was to learn that signaling through the headlight was the more acceptable method on the island roads. The lovely little Mauritius, where I spent nearly four years of my life is often referred to as “Little India”. But the big brother India has quite a few things to learn from its younger sibling, particularly in areas like traffic management, attitudes to life and driving etiquettes.

In the background of my experiences in India, it was so refreshing to find even Cabinet Ministers there, driving around without any security and without causing any dislocation of public traffic. One day when we had invited the Finance Minister, Mr. Lutchmeenaraidoo for a dinner with our top marketing professionals, he surprised us by his simplicity.

As he got down from the car along with his beautiful American wife, he took out a Rs. 200 note from his wallet and gave it to his driver to have buffet dinner, arranged elsewhere in the hotel. While going back he asked the driver to take the rear seat and drove off with his wife by his side.

Similar sportiveness is also reflected in the driving etiquettes in which even the VIPs excel. It is quite common to find someone driving in top gear, slow down and beckon a vehicle on the side road to join the mainstream.

I was once pleasantly surprised to receive such a gesture from no less a person than the Prime Minister Aneerood Jugnauth, whose BMW slowed down to allow me join the main road, leaving in the process his two pilot motorcycles in a bit of momentary confusion.

It is true, in life we tend to give to people what we receive from others. A gesture of grace and courtesy can generate ripples of happiness among others which could multiply and come back to us in some form or the other, sooner or later.