I Want A Free Lunch!

There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch. Ever since monetarist Milton Friedman named as such, one of his several writings of complicated mathematical jargon, the term has been considered as the core fundamental of economic theory. Three decades hence, I have spent two years of an increasingly meaningless existence trying to come to terms with the idea. That we can get nothing that we like without sacrificing something other that we value just as much. It pretty much made a lot of sense, pearls of wisdom for sure! After all, the two years themselves have entailed the opportunity cost of living alone. Then again, there have been the experiences of a practical application of the same, every literal lunch that I have “enjoyed” over the period. The philosophy, if I may demean the word, has run thus: You have this, you can’t have that; if you eat that, this isn’t coming on your plate. Perfect economic logic. Not a fault to be found in it in decades of neoclassical theory.

So I went down for lunch like every other day (well not every) and chose doi over fish. Not a heart-breaking sacrifice that, by any means. Yet a hearty meal later, I was still hungry (blame that on the food, or on my appetite, I can’t say). And the perfection of the logic somehow lost its charm on me. Dramatic bullcrap it would be if I’d say I had one of those moments of reckoning from all the movies that have them. It’s been some time in the coming, and a week of what seems like self-imposed exile has certainly been the last straw that broke the camel’s back. It suddenly doesn’t feel wrong to want a free lunch, nor to make someone else pay for it. And by the time I got back to learn that the ratio of marginal utilities of having doi and having fish should be equal for me and some other hostelite called ‘B’, for the hostel mess to be maximising ‘social welfare’, I certainly had had enough.

If I were to write the rest of my thoughts honestly, it would be considered too inappropriate for a public blog. The gist of the matter remains that I can’t wait to get away from this empty theorising and ‘studying’ a subject that truly has miles to go in order to realise why it exists in the first place.

Postcard from Far Away

A tiny box is hidden far away in a corner of a dusty cupboard. Feels like I have stored away memories of a time gone by. Out of sight yet never out of reach. Mere tokens today, what once meant so much? Yet more than just tokens. For was it just not yesterday when you had handed it to me, furtive eyes scanning the room, nimble hands thrusting it into mine? How much sand has flown through the hourglass since then? Neatly folded, fragrant with nostalgia; I rub off the dust to read. A hand I had read years ago to mock at. Only to long for it in due time. And although the turbulent land of my memories where you reside is worlds away from where I am happy and contented today, why is it that I hold on to your letter? And stranger is it not that I feel that you hold on to that copy of White Mughals? For love has died, and has been burnt away all that came with it. Yet I sit reading your verses, like a postcard from a stranger written long ago to an acquaintance I’d once known.