In olden days, when socialism was sacrosanct and we were so poor that foreign exchange had to be rationed, most Indians developed a foreign exchange complex. I can remember that when I first went abroad in the seventies my ration of dollars was so small that I would have spent it all if I had taken a taxi from Heathrow airport to London. I can remember hesitating before buying myself a coffee. I can remember when foreign travel was so controlled that princesses and the daughters of high officials became air-hostesses just to see the world. A clever career move anyway, because almost the only Indians who traveled then were the scions of rich business families, and many ended up marrying air-hostesses. These ladies now rule in Mumbai as the grande dames of Page 3 and cruel people make jokes behind their back about traveling from trolley to lolly.

Where am I going with this? What happened last week to revive memories of our foreign exchange complex? It was the prime minister’s injunction to his ministers to tighten their belts in general and cut back on foreign travel in particular. “I am writing to you to severely curtail expenditure on air travel, particularly foreign travel ... as we ask the people to bear some of the financial burden of our oil imports, it is not only necessary from the resource conservation point of view but also as a moral duty to cut out all wasteful expenditure in our establishments.”

... contd.