Feeling good about feeling bad

8216;8216;Far from it,8217;8217; was the reply. 8216;8216;Feeling good. Look at the sensex hitting the 6,000-mark, watch the GDP growth and feast on our foreign exchange reserves. I think every Indian ought to feel good.8217;8217;

I felt really bad at not feeling good. There I was a 8216;8216;privileged8217;8217; South Delhi resident battling my cable operator who is hiking the rates everyday, my power bill has mysteriously gone up and my driver is asking for a third raise in less than six months because he wants to 8216;8216;feel good8217;8217; like the rest of us.

8216;8216;Sorry,8217;8217; I told my stockbroker friend. 8216;8216;I find all this difficult to believe. I was reading somewhere that there are as many as 4.2 lakhs who have joined the ranks of the unemployed.8217;8217;

8216;8216;What do you know about economics?8217;8217; countered my friend. 8216;8216;This is a case of jobless growth.8217;8217;

Not familiar with a 8216;8216;growth8217;8217; that could increase the number of unemployed, I realised my economics was no longer fashionable.

My newspaper hawker was whistling tunelessly as he sped past in the blinding fog with zero visibility to deliver the morning papers. I stopped to ask him whether the winter and the fog has added to his plight.

8216;8216;Far from it,8217;8217; he muttered through his clenched teeth chattering in the bitter cold. 8216;8216;Haven8217;t you read the papers? Everyone is feeling good.8217;8217;

Convinced this was a domestic phenomenon, I asked my friend in Sydney whether the Indian cricket team was also affected by the feel-good factor.

8216;8216;Of course,8217;8217; he said. 8216;8216;We might have actually won the drawn test match at Sydney but everyone was feeling good about Waugh8217;s last test so no one thought of winning.8217;8217;

8216;8216;Couldn8217;t we have won but for costly lapses by Parthik Patel?8217;8217; I wondered.

8216;8216;That8217;s precisely the point,8217;8217; explained my friend. 8216;8216;After missing several stumpings and flooring sitters India8217;s young wicket-keeper Parthik Patel is also feeling good. Look at the way the Indian players patted him whenever he missed the catches. The message was feel good. He is no longer feeling bad about dropping catches!8217;8217;

8216;8216;What is there to feel good about in Vajpayee8217;s Pakistan visit?8217;8217; I asked my diplomat friend. 8216;8216;We are ending up doing the unthinkable 8212; discussing Kashmir with Pakistan.8217;8217;

8216;8216;You must be out of your mind for not sensing the feel-good factor,8217;8217; argued my friend. 8216;8216;Did you see how many times TV cameras focused on the Vajpayee-Musharraf handshakes? That is a feel-good factor. Did you see the body language captured by the cameras? Did you hear Imran praising Indian cricketers. All this is a feel-good factor. The problem with you is that you are always a negative man.8217;8217;

8216;8216;With such a feel-good factor, the NDA Government will announce elections,8217;8217; I predicted, trying to sound intelligent. 8216;8216;But how can the Congress counter this feel-good all around. After losing three of the four states that went to the polls, Sonia Gandhi doesn8217;t have any reason to feel jubilant.8217;8217;

8216;8216;Far from it. Sonia is also affected by the feel-good virus,8217;8217; prophesied my BJP friend. 8216;8216;She might feel bad about regional alliance partners like Sharad Pawar8217;s NCP and Mulayam Singh8217;s SP not joining her, but she now feels the best way to feel good is to finish all these regional parties by forging an alliance with the BJP.8217;8217;