Money is tightly linked to economics and terms like supply and demand, excess and none and most importantly wealth creation and distribution.
Whenever I think of wealth, I remember my grandfather, a farmer of a smallholding from a remote village in Guntur district of Andhra Pradesh. My paternal grandparents died much before I was born. My connection with him was limited to garlanding a big photograph of his in the hallway of my childhood home a few times. His picture was kind of multimedia of those days. He never had any a picture all for himself, so they had import his face from a group photo and do it up with a bit of painting to give real image to his face. I have an aunt in her ripe 90's, a small figure shrunk with age. She is the only link for me to understand my grandparents. My aunt dispassionately narrates good and not so good stories about my grandparents in an animated way. When she has to talk about my grandfather, she has this good one, she would say "your grandfather never wore any chappals, and when he walked thorns would break to pieces when he stamped them, his feet became so hard, he had a long stick and was always in his dhoti tied till his knees." Even farmers in Mahbubnagar look no different, except that they wear chappals made by local cobblers, a sect who the villagers believe have special skill in making chappals. She continues, "he covered his bare chest with a small cloth and used to go to his farm. He was growing vegetables in his farm, along with chillies", no wonder, Guntur is known for growing chillies, considering even small holder farmers grew it right from those days. Water was in abundance too. Now comes the interesting piece. "He had few people to help in the farm and after some time working in the farm, he would go and sit under a big tree on the hedge, close his eyes and go meditating" now my aunt would laugh. When I was a child I didn't know why she would laugh at this juncture. She never gave too much of a gap and came straight to the point, "other farmers passing by would shout...Ohhh, Pedda Ramaiah garu, enough of meditating, please open your eyes, see all those passing by your farm are plucking and taking away your vegetables". I never understood the hidden aspects of "taking away” business as a kid. My aunt continued, "your grandfather would shout back, saying let them take as much as they want, after all they are taking for eating and they too need vegetables, but he didn't open his eyes.", then she would ask me "did you know why he was meditating?” wait only for a fraction of a second, I suspect she didn't expect any answer from me, "because people will not take vegetables with such liberty if he was sitting there with his eyes open". So there ended the story.
I must have heard this story n' number of times right from my childhood. But, only now, I see the meaningfulness of the story. It was a fine way to wealth distribution, one creates, but passes on, one takes but takes in the presence of the owner. The giver and the receiver are in total harmony. This way I am sure you don't need an institution to regulate village sustainable development. Yes, I agree it looks and feels platonic. Sounds more like a story than reality, though it is only a two-generation-old reality.
My friend Shariq says this is the spiritual side of the eastern economic model, firmly placed in individual and community belief framework. Communities decide sharing norms based on culture and upbringing. Most often they are passed on from person to person in a family network than are codified elsewhere. Even today in the year 2007 I notice that small boys and girls come to Bhupal's home in drought prone Mahbubnagar village with a small can asking for milk. Bhupal mother believes in the old saying "more people, thinner milk" but surely gives something in the can. I used to think that Bhupal's family might be selling milk, only later I realized that it is a norm for farmers rearing buffaloes to give milk freely to those who can not afford to buy. Had they kept the milk to themselves, they could eat thicker yogurt. Very often, thin buttermilk is served with food for all of us in Bhupal's house, because they don't send the little boys and girls back without milk.
