Every morning as I open the newspaper (I read l?express very much like most of you as revealed by the recent survey on media published last Friday - sorry for the lack of modesty!), I rush to page 7 to check the latest fluctuations of the exchange rate. I derive a perverse pleasure from reading about the price of the US dollar, the pound sterling and, to a lesser extent, the euro going down as our unassuming little rupee gains in strength.

Of course I am aware - on a rather superficial level, I must say - that that the rise in the price of the rupee is an artificial one in the sense that the market is actually being doped with EU money and what not. But reading about the exchange rate still puts a smile on my face.

I don?t know why it should though, to be honest. It seems retailers are completely oblivious to the fact that our valiant rupee isn?t as badly off as it was a few months back because the price of commodities does not seem to be reflecting the change in fortune of the rupee. In case traders didn?t know it, that?s called plain dishonesty.

I am aware that prices on most commodities have generally gone up the world over and that this is why we shouldn?t expect prices to go down massively even after the price of the rupee has gone up quite substantially. But no one could convince me that the rise of the rupee has had as little an impact on the prices of commodities as retailers would have us believe.

And as I am still struggling with the concept of wholesale and retail dishonesty of people, I hear more talk that still doesn?t make sense to my unsophisticated mind. It seems that the rise of the rupee is not good and that a weak rupee is better for exports. Besides the fact that this seems like a conspiracy to ruin my perverse morning pleasure (of reading about exchange rate, nothing else), what do exports have to do with me?

And then I understood. It isn?t about me. It isn?t about you either. Technically, the rise and fall of the rupee makes no difference to me because I?m not included in the groups of people who benefit from it.

I get no discount when the rupee is strong and I get no dividends when the rupee is weak. Isn?t life great?

But who cares, let?s organise conferences on poverty and let?s talk about inclusive growth, about eradicating poverty ?because we owe it to the people who live in poverty?. That?s what the Prime minister said at the conference yesterday.

And don?t let?s stop avaricious and greedy traders and businessmen from making more money on our backs.

Now that the excitement of the SADC conference has subsided and we don?t have to show off anymore, do you know what we?re back to? Inflation. For you and I.

Dividends and discounts for some, inflation for others.

How absolutely wonderful. Beats the pleasure of reading page 7!