FBI vs FDI and my MIL

“Pento! I have a serious problem at hand. Mother has not been sleeping well of late .( This was sort of good news for me for a sleepy MIL should not be as dangerous a threat to my normal existence as a constantly alert one) Nevertheless I had to be chivalrous, and  I had to show the right thing, “what happened” I asked bringing up all my kindish compassionate looks, “She says she is haunted by the FBI”. That was news for me . Well, I  was surprised because usually it would not interfere in such a matter as this which looks purely an internalised internal matter. Well, she had her 2 sons there but they were in good jobs and were rather lambs, so I would not expect any trouble from that quarters. So where lay the problem? I raised the issue with my wife, Ether…I told her in India we might have trouble with the CBI and never with the FBI whatever mischief your mother was upto. And even your mother would not go to that extreme.

“she is not worried for herself but for our Mamu-he is our local bania- “ That left me wondering whether our bania has done some questionable dealings and confided in my MIL . Couldn’t imagine what it should be to attract the CBI mistakenly identified by my MIL as FBI.  “she is even scared of looking at the papers nowadays, it is full of FBI.”And surprisingly I had not read anything about FBI in any of the papers I read and I read quite a number of papers on Internet. Then Ether let the cat out of the bag, “ you think Walmart or Kroger or Carrefour would herald the doom of our old bania system?”

So it was not FBI after all but FDI which was the cause for my MIL’s headache. She was worried about her old bania – the Mamu who knew her whole family upside down for about 3 generations. So I went on to give a lecture to my wife about FDI. I reminded  her about the fears expressed by the vegetable and fruit sellers when Reliance fresh first came into the market and how after some initial setback they all had got stabilized and found their fears were unfounded. They were later found to be doing good business  as in old days inspite of Reliance fresh offering fresher vegetables and fruits.I also explained to her the benefits of FDI to a country like ours…and what it meant to us as consumers and to our farmers the producers… From what I had garnered FDI would do us more good than bad. The farmers would probably get what is due without the middle men eating into their efforts. And the consumers that is us, will get the produce at a reasonable price in much greater variety and without much damage  because of better storage and transport facilities. And there would be lots of jobs available, about 10million is the projected figure,  for the ones that are lost due to closure of some inefficient  retail outlets. FDI in retail segments have the potential to push India’s real GDP in double digit growth trajectory in the next four years is another projection. And these giants cannot cover the nook and corner of India, may be some urban cities and that too prominent locations. So our Mamu and your dear mother need not keep awake  at night worrying about it all. Instead she can use those hours more fruitfully thinking better and newer ways of harassing me..That closed the little affair of FBI and my MIL.           

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