We had been waiting for this ‘event’ for a long time. The last week had slipped by, leaving the Sensex seven points short of a figure that would put it in a five-digit league of global indices. When it reached that mark at 3.13 pm on February 6, it turned stress into smiles. Even before the trading community celebrated this 10th ‘magic figure’ (all the nine previous ones carrying three zeros after a digit), questions began streaming in — for how long will the Sensex continue to rise; will it sustain above 10,000 till Budget 2007; will it touch 12,000 by then; will it reach 15,000 by the end of the year?

Everybody cares, and the pretenders on TV screens aside, nobody knows. So sharp has been the focus on these ‘magical’ marks that we’ve forgotten what the underlying assets are, what the Sensex really represents. As we all know, the Sensex of 1986 is not the Sensex of 2006. Of the 30 companies that it began with, just a third of them remain in the Sensex today — ACC, Grasim, Hindalco, Lever, ITC, L&T, Reliance, Tata Motors, Tata Power and Tata Steel. Resilience is a hard task mistress.

But is the Sensex a true reflection of India’s economic health? Let’s ...

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