Mr Moneypenny

But five years out of Parliament and Chidambaram, 58, is a changed man. Harvard-educated Chidambaram who comes from the affluent trading community of Tamil Nadu—the Chettiars—made a comeback in this Lok Sabha and bagged the FM’s portfolio. And this time it’s a new Chidambaram in the saddle, a man who has spent the last five years travelling in the countryside.

These years have given Chidambaram crucial insights into what is good for the ‘‘aam aadmi’’. This time he talks of providing water to the poor families in the remote villages of India. He resents the lack of basic amenities in rural areas.

He speaks on how illiteracy among rural girls is a result of lack of water in these areas and how girls are pulled out of schools to perform routine duties such as fetching water. And he thinks this is a crime.

He is angry that children in rural India often die because there’s no doctor and that they have no access to medicines. And this time he wants to correct it all.

But it’s ironic. The more he’s tried to give a human face to his Budget, the shriller has been the criticism over it. If the stock markets gave a thumbs down after he announced a transaction tax on all paper bought in the stock exchanges, the middle classes could feel the pinch from the inflationary pressures and the 2 per cent cess and allies like the Left are decrying the ‘‘sell-out’’ by raising the FDI caps in telecom, civil aviation and insurance. The Opposition, as usual, is criticising it for just about everything.

He’s made it to the headlines alright, but he’s looking a bit defensive, a reaction you don’t associate with the man at all. Within a few hours after the Budget, Chidambaram even admitted to be ‘‘willing to take a relook’’ at the much criticised transaction tax. What? A ‘‘roll-back’’ Chidambaram, now that’s a new phenomenon!

In his previous stint as finance minister, Chidambaram was God, everybody’s hero. Corporate India loved him—after all he was the first FM to cut corporate taxes, make them more reasonable and get rid of the notion that profiteering through genuine business was a bad word in socialist India. The salaried classes also found him acceptable as he had something for them too and cut their taxes as well.

The business and trader class have never forgotten him since his no-questions-asked Voluntary Disclosure of Income Scheme (VDIS) which helped them turn the colour of their money, from black to white.

But some of that enthusiasm for Chidambaram appears to have worn off with time.