Petrol Rising: Are you worried?

Recently we saw another surge in the petrol prices which now stands at approx. 68 a litre. No doubt, it is going to pinch the Indian consumer's pocket a lot more but we can't help but keep buying this essential fuel to keep our vehicles running and our lives running for that matter. Lot of hue and cry about this increase and a lot of media discussion as usual. Heavy criticism thrown at the government from all corners and it becomes the ultimate villain for the Aam Aadmi at this juncture.

Okay as a matter of fact, I am not writing this to go into the details of the fuel prices increase or analyzing the price trends or produce all kind of intellectual arguments and making you scratch your heads to make a sense out of it. Enough has been written already covering all these topics and I am in no mood to add to the plethora of such writings.

I just had a passing thought in my head this morning which I wish to share. Okay here it goes.

All of us have been distressed yet again by the petrol price increase but have we ever wondered that it is still cheaper than so many commodities which we regularly spend money on. First and foremost thing which comes to my mind is alcohol. Oh yes, alcohol! A litre of petrol costs 68 but we manage to get only 650ml of beer after shelling out close to 80-90 and even the smallest unit of whisky(please read it as a quarter :) costs more than petrol! Ever made this comparison? We have hardly given it a thought before gulping down two cans of beer or 3 pegs of whisky and perhaps never made a big deal out of it. But why so with petrol?

Now let's compare the output of the two fuels (No harm in calling them fuels I guess because they look quite similar after all). A litre of petrol would make you traverse 50 odd km on your bike and 15 odd km in your car and the tastier of the two fuels (this is an assumption, you are free to taste the other one and challenge this assumption;) would hardly last for an hour or two. And yes, forget even walking one km after having it!

Damn it, why crib then??? This argument rather comparison might sound silly to some folks but there is some more to come.

I have seen many people easily consuming atleast 10-15 bottles of beer in a month spending more than they do on petrol and never complaining about the prices of alcohol but have also seen the same people queuing up at the petrol pumps on the night of price increase for saving a petty 50.

This brings me to another strange fact. Why do people queue up at the petrol pumps a night before? Even if you do a full tank for a bike, a 5 increase in price would save you no more than Rs 50. And not more than 150 for your car. Is it then worth to queue up like the fuel is going extinct at midnight! Do 150 really matter so much in this period of high inflation so that people don't mind queuing up? It only makes me wonder that probably people want to save some money for shoving some more pegs down their throat or they are extremely free and don't have anything worthwhile to do! And I am not talking about lower income group out here riding on their Tata Nano. The talk is about the Honda Cities and the Hyundai Vernas.

Well whatever the case may be, but one thing which explains the behaviour of the masses is that it's all about following other people blindly without knowing why! Both fuels are no doubt harmful in some or the other ways and the earlier we get rid of them and look for some alternates, the better it will be for us.