18 March,2009 08:12 AM IST | | Kavitha Kumar
Over the last few weeks, I've been flooded with calls from a lot of (self- proclaimed) rich, smart people who are simply desperate to make me as rich as them.
They seduce me with offers ofu00a0 'financial freedom at thirty'; they astonish me with their confident (almost cheerful) predictions of the real Great Depression and they reassure me that I will sail through the terrible crisis if and only if-I sign up with them to peddle everything from weight-loss concoctions to dream holidays in resorts that are yet to be built.
They invite me to closed-door sessions at five-star hotels, where I get to sip on mineral water as I hear their wondrous half-truths, hidden truths and untruths. But I gladly permit myself to allow their dreamy tales strike root in my imagination because it's nice to fantasize about life in the Bahamas, with well-made mojitos for company.
Calling them swindlers, hustlers or conmen would be commonplace. In some romantic way, they are the swashbuckling rogues who trick us with our worst impulse greed.
But the stocky revenue inspector, seated behind the rickety table at the property tax collection centre in Bangalore, doesn't belong to this tribe. He has neither the wit nor the liveliness of the scam artiste. What he does have is a pair of beady eyes that will bore into the hearts of potential prey the kind who simply can't risk a layoff for staying away from work to chase a paper trail.
These chained-to-their-computer types, he knows, can be cajoled or coerced into paying up simply to avoid time-consuming delays in queues that take hours to move an inch.
"If you want to play it by the rulebook, you'll have a hard time getting it done," his crafty eyes seem to say.
The fact that the tax forms are more like weapons of mass destruction helps him ply his trade with the injured air of a martyr to your cause. To stymie the side-business of such fellows and to make sure you don't get into cosy agreements with them to evade tax, the authorities have insisted on payments by cheque. But undeterred by such routine hiccups, our man knows he can feed off the secrets of those who for years have been out-manoeuvring the system.
And so his story goes: bigger bribes and better status as the keeper of everyone's taxing secrets. Makes the dream-selling hustlers almost likeable, no?
