I Feel Pity for the President and Vice President

As per the protocol, if the President is invited for a function, he should be the one who is inaugurating it. He should not be a spectator when someone else is inaugurating. Vice-President is the second in the line of the protocol. If the President is not attending the event, then he should be the one who is inaugurating. He cannot be a spectator when someone who is less in the protocol is inaugurating.

Since, Modi wants to inaugurate, he did not invite the President or Vice-President.

I feel pity for the President and the Vice President for multiple reasons. 

Ex-President Ramnath Kovindh and Ex-Prime Minister Deve Gowda got the invitation and they attended. But, the present President and Vice-President did not get the invite and they could not attend, eventhough it is one of the biggest events of the Government.

A person sends a message to be read by someone else, when they are unable to attend. If the event is too small for their stature, they may just send a message and not actually attend the event. Or if they are too busy with something else, or they are ill and could not come out, then also they may send a message. In this case, neither the President nor the Vice-President had any of those issues, still they sent their messages to be read by the Deputy Chairman of the Rajya Sabha, only because they were not invited to the inauguration to give their message directly.

Personally, it is insulting for me, if someone says, "We are conducting an event. You do not come to the event. But, give me your message for the event." 

Since, Parliament consists of Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha, Lok Sabha speaker is given prominent importance and he is there at the main inauguration. But, the Chairman of the Rajya Sabha is not there. Because, the Vice-President is the Chairman of the Rajya Sabha. If he is invited, then he should do the inauguration and not the Prime Minister, since, Vice-President is above in the protocol to the Prime Minister. So, the Chairman of the Rajya Sabha was also sidelined, and the Deputy Chairman was invited in his place. 

I head a house, but I am not invited to the inauguration of the house that I head. But, my deputy is invited and he is given prominent importance to sit on the podium. 

Since Nehru's time, there have been a lot of differences between the Prime Ministers and Presidents. But, I am not sure whether any other President or Vice-President were insulted this way. 

Buying Vegetables at High Price

After a long long time, I looked at the price tag in a vegetable shop and decided whether to buy or not based on the price.

Many years back, I read the following quote.

When do you realize you are rich?

When you buy without looking at the price tag.

Later I realized that I was rich, because I was not looking at the price tag while I was buying vegetables. [Of course, it is not the case when I go to any other store other than vegetable shops.]

In recent times, there were a couple of instances when I felt like I should have looked at the price before buying. If I had looked at the price before buying, I would not have bought those. First instance was during the lockdown in the first wave of Corona, and the second instance was before the lockdown during the second wave of Corona. At that time, the prices of a few vegetables were very high, and if I had known the prices before, I would not have bought those. 

Sometime back, when there were floods, I consciously looked at the price of the vegetables, and did not buy a few vegetables (or bought less quantity) at a higher price. That was almost the first instance in many many years, when I decided to reduce the consumption of vegetables in the food because of the higher price.

It is not because I am having financial problems. It is because I did not want my consumption to affect the prices. 

Most of the time, the prices are decided by the demand and supply. When there is more demand and less supply, the prices would increase. When there is less demand and more supply, the prices would decrease.

If the price is increasing, it means there is more demand and less supply. Now, if I go and buy everything that I need without worrying about the price, the supply would reduce further, and the mismatch between demand and supply would increase even further causing the prices to increase further. 

I did not want to increase the prices because of my consumption. So, whenever there is a sudden rise in prices of something, I am trying to reduce the consumption of that.