GBS AND MY MONEY

"A lot depends on what Bernardshaw will do next", informed my "wealth manager" from A bank.

First, a disclaimer: I do not have any wealth that needs managing. But by signing up for this service, I do get services delivered at my doorstep by the bank from across the street, in addition to a lot of drivel on financial markets.. One day they are sure to discover that I do not belong in that group, but until then my life is made a bit easier.

The thought of the long-dead Nobel-winning author and playwright rising from the dead only to take away and redistribute my meagre savings to people with even less - he was a socialist after all - boggled my mind. I was profoundly disturbed. My last encounter with the said Mr Shaw was 46 years ago, in college, when compelled to read his plays Pygmalion and Apple Cart. In a show of one-upmanship, and in order to impress my professor as much as to scare my classmates with my erudition, I chose also to read a few of his other works (not prescribed by the University).

He had, in my opinion, done enough damage by propagating Fabian Socialism which found an ardent adherent in Mr Nehru, India's first prime minister. The latter was the one responsible for many of our ills today - state ownership of businesses, the border problem with China, the "Hindu Rate" of growth, the dislike of and attempts to eliminate the "middle men" in total disregard to the risk-dispersing role they played, etc etc. My attempts to read many of Shaw's plays the better to make sensible comments on his "prescribed works",  not to mention impress afore mentioned constituencies, was a distraction I could ill-afford in my pursuit of Physics. My independent comments were not welcomed by the examiners, it turned out (a C for my efforts), who preferred the "standard answer". The greatest mortification was that smug and stupid girl who couldn't even spell right most of the time getting a B+ and pointedly asking me what my grade was.

As you can see, the thought of Bernardshaw coming back into my life  is unwelcome for a number of reasons. My banker's words deeply disturbed me.

I did rather like the movie My Fair Lady based on Shaw's Pygmalion, though. Especially the scene in which Eliza Doolittle urges the horse she backed to "move yer bloomin' arse". The songs "I could have danced all night" and "I have grown accustomed to her face" are my favourites. Rex Harrison was fantastic and Audrey Hepburn was pretty as she always was. It was one of the two or three movies I was allowed to watch while in college - the fact that it was based on my "prescribed play" was somehow deemed by my mum to be useful for enhancing my grades. When the grades finally came, it was too late but my mum's faith in movies as a means of improving grades was shaken for good. Lucky for them that she did not have any children after me.

I was trying hard to ascertain the ways in which Bernard Shaw could come back to affect my financial status for the worse. Socialism has largely been abandoned as "The God That Failed", publicly-owned enterprises are bleeding themselves to a slow but certain death, and redistribution of wealth would in all probability give something to me rather than take something away, etc etc.

Then it struck me: my banker was referring to Bernanke.

I think my financial well-being is in trouble, even without Bernard Shaw.