In a stunning development that has left behavioral economists across the world awe-struck, the handsomeness of Raghuram Rajan, the incoming RBI governor, has decisively averted India’s economic crisis. This was how the story unfolded: As soon as Rajan was announced as the new RBI governor, reams of column and editorial space in leading dailies and business journals were devoted to hailing India’s messiah, beseeching the MIT trained economist to, inter alia, tame inflation, halt the slide of the rupee, solve the impending CAD and BoP crisis, reform the financial sector, improve the Indian economy’s competitiveness, open bank accounts for all Indians, pass key bills, build more roads and ports, dig out more coal, prevent rapes, even ‘debottleneck’ the IRCTC server!!

The coverage attained saturation levels with even ToI page 3 devoting an entire section to his good looks and telegenic countenance. Concomitantly, his file photo was flashed on all leading television channels and planted across front pages, catapulting him overnight to super-stardom reserved hitherto for the Khans and, perhaps, Sir Jadeja.

Women took to the social media to express their feelings for Dr.Rajan, posting comments on Twitter and Facebook such as ‘He is so cute ya’, ‘I am tellin u..its his eyes..they are so dreamy’, ‘I jus luvz his skin..not 2 dark, not 2 lite, jus purrrfect’, ‘I love his slightly scruffy rebellious hair’ etc. Middle class parents wanted a son like him, their daughters wanted husbands/boyfriends like him, and their sons wanted to be like him. This influential section of society soon took to organizing societies, Facebook groups and concerted campaigns to do all they can to help this man, this Dark Knight that India needs. “His face shall not get wrinkled, his hair shall not get greyed. Not on our watch,” being their motto.

Every pronouncement of his was seized and acted upon with messianic zeal. First, they went after gold imports – Housewives resolved not to stock up on gold, young girls refused to accept gold jewellery from boyfriends, inflation-indexed bonds replaced gold as dowry. Consequently, gold imports this quarter are expected to decline by 35% over the same period last year.

Then they went after fuel subsidies – Women bought electric cars. They forced their men to ditch their gas guzzling SUVs and take public transport three days a week. They junked their diesel generators wherever possible. The fuel subsidy bill and oil imports are expected to decline considerably this quarter.

Then they went after food inflation – They decided to fast twice a week to curb demand for cereals that is driving food inflation. They ditched protein rich foods to reverse the changing consumption patterns. No stomach will be left ‘unhungry’ to tackle the food inflation, they resolved.

Then they went after remittances/deposits – Mothers ordered their NRI sons to remit more. Wives forced their NRI husbands to save more. They then went after interest rates – the fairer sex dumped their credit cards and put off shopping binges to bring down interest rates and spur growth-enhancing investment, as desired by their hero.

All these steps have meant that Dr.Rajan’s fetching looks have done more for the Indian economy in a couple of days than what Dr. Manmohan Singh’s UPA has managed in its nine year tenure.

Bollywood is going all out to embrace India’s pin-up icon. Rohit Shetty has already announced a new biopic on the IIT-IIMA gold medalist starring Shah Rukh Khan. While SRK fans had a collective orgasm over this news, economists like Bibek Debroy threatened to leave the country if such a barbarous thing were to happen to economists. Not to be left behind, South Indian director Shankar unveiled his own plans on making a movie with Rajnikanth playing Dr.Rajan. In the movie, Rajni as Dr. Rajan would steal half-a-trillion US dollars from the Federal Bank for a ‘good cause’ and thus save Indian economy from a looming CAD/BOP crisis.

Meanwhile, Rajdeep Sardesai was spotted talking to himself while gulping large amounts of Old Monk directly from the bottle after noticing Raghuram Rajan’s portrait as wallpaper on Sagarika’s laptop.