Smiling like Cheshire cat in GST times

Harvinder Khetal

A new tryst is set to begin at the stroke of midnight. It is a tryst with a new taxation regimen -- the GST -- from July 1. 

The run-up to the day has spawned a new type of ‘sale’ in the country. Retailers have added a new term to their kind of sales. If the ‘summer sale, ‘winter sale’, ‘stock clearance sale’, ‘Divali sale’, ‘Christmas sale’ were not enough, a ‘pre-GST sale’ has sprouted. My message box is flooded with tempting discount appeals: ‘shop your heart out with flat 50% off’. There is a festive look in shopping centres as people clamour to grab things – clothes, gadgets, shoes, electronics, cosmetics et al – before they become ‘costlier’ with the new tax looming like a monster. 

All this clamour, without anyone knowing what exactly this monster called GST (Goods and Services Tax) is. Anyway, taxation has always been too taxing a subject for most of us ordinary mortals even ordinarily. They say that GST is one indirect tax for the whole nation, which will make India one unified common market. GST is a single tax on the supply of goods and services, right from the manufacturer to the consumer. Understood?

As my sister and I stepped out the other day to buy some household stuff, we got sucked into the ‘attractive offers’ talk by a sleek marketing guy selling refrigerators. People were making a beeline to the mall in droves. The ‘pre-GST’ sales seem to have put ants in their pants, especially of women, as they were unable to sit still out of excitement. 

Seeing them move around, grinning like a Cheshire cat, with bags full of goodies, I could not help smile at the inscrutable poser: who is looting whom? 

By the way, to grin like a Cheshire cat is to grin broadly. Lewis Carroll used this phrase in ‘Alice's Adventures in Wonderland’ to delightful effect:

'Please would you tell me,' said Alice, a little timidly, for she was not quite sure whether it was good manners for her to speak first, 'why your cat grins like that?'

'It's a Cheshire cat,' said the Duchess, 'and that's why. Pig!'

She said the last word with such sudden violence that Alice quite jumped; but she saw in another moment that it was addressed to the baby, and not to her, so she took courage, and went on again:

'I didn't know that Cheshire cats always grinned; in fact, I didn't know that cats COULD grin.'

'They all can,' said the Duchess; 'and most of 'em do.'

I recall we siblings grinning broadly on seeing the illustrations of the Cheshire cat by Sir John Tenniel adorning the book. The purple and pink coloured cat seemed to aptly bring to life the intelligent and mischievous character that at times helps Alice and at times naughtily gets her into trouble. It’s only later, as a student of political science, did I also learn that this graphic humorist was the famous political cartoonist of the ‘Punch’ magazine. Tenniel was knighted by the British Queen for his commendable work spanning over 50 years in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

Well, well, I wish we could all smile like this cat even when we are paying taxes. But it always pinches. Though cess has been levied since the ancient times, it always seems to break ones back. It makes one feel like one of those other interesting characters created by Lewis Carroll: it makes one mad as a hatter. 

But we would like to be as happy as a clam. A clam is a mollusk that is dug up when the tide is low. The idiom comes from the fuller version of the phrase as happy as a clam at high water. Hide tide is when clams are free from the attentions of predators and, thus, the happiest of times for them. Surely, we would be as happy as clams if our rulers followed the advice prescribed by Manu in Manusmriti, the first law book of our country. It says: “As the leech, the calf, and the bee take their food little by little, even so must the King draw from his realm moderate annual taxes.' 

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