The Indian economy is on a roll, ask the Bombay taxi driver.
Cool Cabs are the electric-blue, air-conditioned taxis that were introduced in Bombay about five years ago. Unfortunately for the taxi-owners, by the time people got hooked to the comforts of the cab, recession struck, asset prices crashed and Bombay felt it the hardest. Brokers, lenders, bankers, who would have taken the cab on their journeys home to the suburbs, opted instead for car pools —shared non air-conditioned taxis —and even went back to travelling by train.
All that has begun changing again. " Tezee (speed) has returned," said a Cool Cab driver recently. "Just when I had given up and was thinking of changing my taxi from A/C to non A/C, good times are back."
Drivers must thank the Bombay Stock Exchange, which has managed to turn around a lost cause with an unprecedented surge in stocks over the last few months. Economists, policy makers, advisers and columnists might debate the "essentials of a sustained economic recovery", but for both the stock exchange and the Cool Cab driver this boom is here to stay. So what has happened and why is the stock market ignoring pronouncements of Wise Men?