The game of sweaters and air-cooled shirts

Imagine a game where the referee gives a sweater or an air-cooling shirt to one player and he has to wear it for some time. The rule is that the player can pre-decide the time for which he will wear the sweater (to increase his body temperature) or the air-cooling shirt (to reduce his body temperature), after which the player's body temperature becomes applicable to the entire stadium.

The time for which the player has to wear the sweater or the air-cooling shirt is supposed to be pre-decided by the player himself and that time period has to be shared by the player with the referee before the start of the match. But the public in the stadium are kept in the dark about what the player has pre-decided about this time period.

Now, the game begins. It is a hot summer month when the player receives the first sweater and completely disregarding the rule set by himself of waiting for a pre-decided time, he immediately passes on the increased body temperature to the entire stadium, making everybody suffer. The referee refuses to check whether the player is following his own rule of wearing the sweater for some pre-fixed time before passing on the increased temperature to the entire stadium and is in fact happy that the effect of his sweater is being passed on to the entire stadium immediately. Soon, the entire stadium is sweating profusely and cries out for relief. The referee now passes out an air-cooling shirt to the player.

The player now remembers the rule he had set and wants to enjoy the reduced temperature for himself and refuses to pass on the reduced temperature to the stadium without waiting for the pre-decided time that only he (and the referee) knows. Some time passes but the player still refuses to pass on the reduced temperature to the stadium.

The entire stadium has watched the air-cooling shirt being given to the player quite some time ago and can't understand why the player is not passing on the reduced temperature to the stadium even now. The stadium approaches the referee for relief. The referee knows the player is absolutely right when he points to the rule that allows him to wait for a pre-decided time before passing on the reduced temperature to the stadium. He also can't tell the player to ignore the rule (because it had been set by the referee himself). He cannot also admit that he had ignored the violation of the same self-set rules when the increased temperature due to his past sweaters had been passed to the entire stadium without waiting for the pre-defined period.

He is now reduced to shouting at the players that it is nonsense your temperature has not been reduced and you should, therefore, pass on the reduced temperature to the stadium. Fortunately for him, the employer of the player is even more interested in the stadium cooling down and he talks the player into doing what the referee wanted. So, the rules are broken again and the player reluctantly passes on the reduced temperature to the entire stadium without waiting for the pre-defined period. The stadium heaves a sigh of relief and the media writes about the reduced temperature, without pointing out that the rules have been violated, yet again.

Nobody wonders why the rules of the game are not made simple. Why doesn't the referee make up his mind on what he wants? Does he want that as soon as he hands over a sweater or air-cooling shirt to the player, it must immediately pass on the temperature effect to the entire stadium? If so, why does it not make a rule to that effect, rather than making different rules and allowing the player to break it with impunity?

Now, read the story again after doing the substitutions as given below to relate this fable to our lives.

Referee - RBI
Player - Bank
Sweater - Increase in repo rates
Air-cooling shirt - decrease in repo rates
Temperature increase/decrease - increase/decrease in base rate
Player's employer - The government
What do you think the rules of this game should be?

The writer is director, Apnapaisa.com