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Tamrapatrak Vyavastha (Arthvyavastha - Part II)

Read Arthvyavastha (अर्थव्यवस्था) Part I here.

Saakshaat was the first 'tamrapatradhari' or shareholder of Aanglesh's trade - but many Saamanyas followed soon - it started with Aanglesh and Saakshaat's friends, then their acquaintances, some of whom were good friends of Aanglesh's father also. People saw Aanglesh's firm prospering, making more and more money with the growing number of tamrapatrakdhari's.

Most of the community's elders saw this scheme as a devious one - it was helping people earn money from money, without actually requiring people to work to earn their bread. This included everyone including Aanglesh's father who was a devout disciple of Pramukhji.

But the younger and middle aged Saamanyas loved the scheme, they put in every small bit of savings they could into Aanglesh's company. Aanglesh's was able to grow his trade beyond foodgrains using the money gathered from the sale of tamrapatraks.

But as more people bought tamraptraks, work around issuing, recollecting and reissuing tamrapatraks grew. Sometimes, people would need a lot of money to buy a large asset for their home or to build a new room - they would then surrender their tamrapatras to Aanglesh. But there was never a dearth of people who would want to put in money to get these surrendered tamrapatrak's.

Saakshaat became the caretaker for issue-reissue activity. His house became an office for all such activities and he had to hire a few assisstants to help him handle all the related paperwork. Aanglesh on his part gave Saakshaat and his team a regular pay for managing the tamraptrak work. Saakshaat himself also earned from the profit share from his own tamraptraks.

Then one day, Aanglesh brought another trader from the market - Anugam (अनुगम) - to Saakshaat's house. Anugam had heard about the tamrapatrak scheme from Aanglesh and wanted to float his own tamrapatraks. Saakshaat was thrilled and cautious at the same time - he listened to Anugam patiently, but did not commit anything to him.

After Anugam left, Saakshaat revealed his doubts to Aanglesh - first was a resurfacing of Pramukhji's doubts - there was limited money with people, if many tamrapatrak schemes were floated, money available for each tamrapatrak would get reduced. Second was a more fundamental angle - with Aanglesh Saakshaat was sure how the money would get used, but would Anugam also use the money fairly, how do we guarantee that he would not splurge on unnecessary expenses.

Aanglesh was quite fearless with respect to these things - first he felt that there were many people especially those closer to Anugam and not so close to him and Saakshaat who had not yet invested in tamraptraks who would get involved. Second, he trusted Anugam - more importantly, he said if Anugam did not spend the money wisely, he would not make high profits which would anyway force people away from buying his tamrapatraks.

In fact, Aanglesh felt that by having more traders float their tamrapatraks - it was possible to motivate every trader to do their business efficiently, because only those traders' tamprapatraks will be in demand who do business honestly and make more profits for their tamrapatrak holders. Otherwise, they would risk people return their tamrapatraks and buy those of other traders instead.

Saakshaat realized his friend was not just correct this time but this thought process described the true genius he was. Aanglesh may not have been the brightest of rishi Kalpak's (the village school teacher) students, but he was sure a clever mind!

Read next: Vinimay (Arthvyavastha - Part III)

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