Idlis…….Economics…….DMU…..

Idlis…….Economics…….DMU…..

“What is there for breakfast Mom? Asked my son as he was preparing for his Monday morning WFH.

“Idlis. With hot sambar and green spicy chutney that you like.” answered my wife suavely,  marketing her product.

“Idlis?” cried my son exasperatingly. “No. Not again. I have really got DMU of idlis Mom. Why don’t you prepare something else? Anything else, but not idlis.”

I laughed at his honest declaration of getting DMU of idlis. The diminishing marginal utility of idlis, I mean. It is true that my wife has been cooking idlis on weekend. Idlis for breakfast on Saturday, then for dinner. Again for breakfast on Sunday morning and  idlis for lunch. Poor lady estimated the consumption of idlis on the basis of the visit of her sister’s family on Saturday morning, who unfortunately did not turn up. So she was left with the excess batter which she obviously had a responsibility to consume. That was her economical necessity of deriving maximum benefit from the sunk cost. But with my son, it was a different economical law playing truant.

Can you imagime that economics is capable of  creating emotional havocs even in families too, forget the traumatic histories of the  communists & capitalists  since the time of Smiths & Marxes & Keynes’.

As I thought deeper, I was convinced that this DMU thing is really surreptitiously ubiquitous in our lives. Without understanding the concept of DMU from classical economics, we routinely keep getting it in our life on a routine basis. For those who did not have economics as a subject in their curriculum, the law of Diminishing Marginal Utility states that as a person consumes an item, the satisfaction or the utility that he derives from the item goes on reducing as he consumes more and more of that item.

No one is an exception to this law.  Because the human mind follows the laws of economics without its knowledge as much as the Sun and the moon follow the laws of gravity without even being capable of thinking about it.

However, everyone has a way of getting over his or her own DMU. So when one gets DMU of watching the news on TV and he/she switches over to music. One gets DMU of reading books and engages in some games or a jog to overcome it.  During the lockdown, people got DMU of sitting at home. Today they are crowding marketplaces outdoors even at the risk of getting infected by the deadly Coronavirus.

Forget the physical possessions, most of us get DMU of relationship too. Too much closeness with people whom we love causes a DMU. Why do you think that the otherwise loving and affectionate pair of husband and wife starts criticizing and fighting with  each other on small things periodically? Because they get DMU of each other. No joke, please. The best solution for this is for you wives  to visit your parents once in a while for a few days. You need not be afraid of leaving your husband alone with all that unrestrained freedom.  He will anyway get DMU of that freedom too. And it will  happen really very fast.  The older your marriage the faster he will get that DMU. Take it from me. He will start yearning for your return and both of you will be  rewarded with a higher amount of mutual love than it was when you left him.

There is a  Sanskrit subhashita which explains the concept of DMU beautifully.

अतिपरिचयादवज्ञा संतत गमनादनादरो भवति ।

मलये भिल्लपुरन्ध्री चन्दनतरुकाष्ठमिन्धनं कुरुते ॥

If you are  too much acquainted with someone or you go to his/her home  frequently, there are chances that you will either be insulted or will lose respect. Just as the tribal woman on Malay mountain, where sandalwood tree grows in abundance, gets DMU of even that precious wood and casually burns it as a fuel to cook her daily food.

So when next time you get a DMU of reading my posts and skip over it without giving even a customary  like, I will not be surprised. But neither will I stop posting, till of course, I get my own DMU of writing on my wall.