Wild Wild West — The Budget Saga

"When you shoot, you shoot, don’t talk." Remember, the Clint Eastwood starrer 1966 epic The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. It reminded me of P Chidambaram-starrer Union Budget 2007-08. Strange, but couldn't help it. Why? See, the run-up to the Budget is like a treasure hunt with every word of PC (even his gestures) are taken as clues. Corporate India, Common Man and Left-backed Common Minimum Programme (CMP) are the three contenders. Don’t call them good, back or ugly. Please. Each one eyes the treasure, the key to which belongs to PC.
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly tells the story of three men seeking a fortune in buried coins, the catch being that no single one of them knows the exact location. At one stage of the film, one knows the name of the grave the coins are buried in, the other two know only the name of the graveyard. Well a clear case illustrating modern day mantra — Information Is The King. The contenders only have bits of information and ideally needed to team up to get the spoil. This way they could have easily avoided all the bloodshed and pain. Unfortunately, they fight and the fittest survives — Darwin still rules the globe. If we look closely the three contenders in our case also have bits and pieces of information and the one with the key data will come out as the winner.
A closer look will tell you that the areas of interest of the three actually overlap. Surprised? See, the CMP is basically for the Common Man but the latter is reluctant to believe that. He actually thinks that there are high chances that the CMP may hold back the economy and if that happens, he will be the ultimate sufferer. Well, globalisaton and free market economy are not that bad and isn't rocket science for our Common Man to understand. He also believes that corporates should be given support and help they need to compete globally. But, that can't be at the cost of the Common Man's income. He's happy with the support as long as his income is not axed.
Our second contender, CMP, believes it's fighting for the Common Man. Of course, it is for, by and of the people. It understands the needs of the Common Man better that he does. And it knows that Corporate India will exploit him for its bottomline.
Finally, Corporate India, which only understands profits, fails to realise what's the need for CMP. It's a free market and the fittest will survive. And with competition and takeovers reaching global standards, the great Indian takeover as they say, the economy will grow at a fast pace and Common Man will only gain in a booming economy. So, what's the problem with them growing?
So, our contenders don't really hate each other, like the movie, but are confused. This, in effect, confuses PC.
The treasure here is the document that PC will unveil on February 28. The reformer, we are sure, knows that the spoil belongs to all the three. There's no Clint Eastwood here. As a matter of fact, here all the three are the heros. So. lets see how PC, the star of this version of the Italian epic spaghetti Western, has scripted the ending of the saga. I am sure, when he’ll shoot, he will shoot and will talk too.