Barter

I have an admission to make. Yesterday, I lied thoroughly and outrageously – to three young people. With the lies I told them, I have spread disinformation and confusion too. (And god knows, they’re a confused lot already, poor things.) What I did was nothing short of ragging, but luckily, since I don’t belong to any college hostel, no one can take action against me.

I have only this to say in my defence: they called me up at a bad time. And bad time is when you’re answering the 300th phone call in the last one month from people asking you if you want a credit card, a home loan, or a car loan. Yesterday’s three young people – let us call them Rahul, Shweta and Neha - were just doing their job, but poor kids, they turned out to be the proverbial last straw on this camel’s back, and I kind of broke. Just flipped out.

It wasn’t your everyday or garden variety of flipping out. I didn’t yell and screech and say sarcastic things or slam the phone down or pretend that I was the maid and shout Tai ghari nahi nantar phone kara. I simply engaged them in a long conversation and enlightened them. Got them to think laterally.

First a brief backgrounder: Last week I got one of those ‘pre-approved’ credit cards in my mail – complete with my name embossed in it – from a bank with whom I have never banked or transacted any business. It came with the usual glossy colourful brochures, which I promptly cut up into little squares to add to my palette of paper mosaic that I work on whenever MSEB cuts me off. As for the card, I cut it into four pieces with my garden shears, put it in the bank’s postage pre-paid envelope, and posted it back to them. It was my wordless ‘no thank you’ – a social grace taught to me by a friend who gets about 5 of these in the mail every week.

But somehow, the bank seemed to have not got this subtle hint, and wondered if I had maybe cut up the card ‘by mistake’. So they got a Miss Shweta to call me and ask. It started with her asking: "Ma’am, will you be availing of our credit card facility?" Now normally I would have said, employing my Marathi-manus sarcastic best tone: "Shweta, child, when I send you a card cut into four, does that look like I want to avail of your facility?"

However, yesterday I simply said, "No, thank you."

To which she asked: "May I know the reason why?"

Again, normally I would have been tempted to say "No you may not," or descended into some childish retort like "Why? Because the sky is so high."

But to my pleasant surprise I found myself saying, "Because I don’t use credit cards. I use the barter system."

Poor Shweta – I could here her gulping, and then she said: "Ibegyourpardonmaam?"

I said: "Barter…exchange of goods and services. We don’t use cash or credit at all."

In a slightly faint voice she asked: "Ma’am what is the nature of your work?"

"I’m a book-editor and writer and counselor," I said, and a series of lovely lies floated into my head in preparation for her next question.

"But ma’am you need to buy things, no…groceries, white goods, etc?" Shweta asked.

"No. The people I write for pay me in dalia sacks," I volunteered, and offered her an extra nugget of info, that my dogs eat dalia as their staple.

While she was digesting this, I added: "And counseling clients pay me in fruits and vegetables; as for particularly complex cases, they pay me with microwaves, hair dryers. And for a large book edit project I got paid with a Zen by the publisher. So you see, I don’t need to buy or sell anything with money or credit."

At this point Shweta went dead silent for a few seconda, said one minute maam and passed the phone to one Rahul who said smoothly: "Rahul this side maam, I believe you are looking for a car loan to buy a Zen?"

I said "No, no…I just said that I wanted to exchange a Zen and 15 sacks of dalia, for a holiday to Europe. You in the market for it, Rahul?"

At which point he said, mustering up all the dignity and presence of mind taught to him at home and in B-school, "Ma’am please speak to our Area Manager."

And then came Neha here. To whom I said, "You know Neha, credit-shedit, loans-woans…all these are going out of fashion. You must re-train your people in Beg. It’s the next big thing in the consumer finance sector. And I’m a Beg Consultant."

"I beg your pardon?" Neha asked, now deeply confused.

"B-E-G – Barter and Exchange of Goods," I told her patiently. "It’s a complete new way for the economy to function. Actually it’s how our ancestors transacted business. And now it’s a subject being offered in all the big B-schools. You can call me in to your bank any time as a consultant on Beg. All I will ask for in exchange is 300 floor tiles to re-do my bathroom."

At which point she put down the phone. I had achieved the hitherto unachievable: getting this kind of banker to put the phone down before I did.

Don’t judge me harshly. Call it my little April Fool joke. They were asking for it - given that these ‘pre-approved’ credit chaps try to make fools of us round the year.