India, Oct. 31 -- We are, each of us, feeling the slow boil.

Inflation is one of modern life's inevitabilities, as certain as time itself (or death and taxes). Prices rise, currencies thin, and what once bought a quick mid-day sandwich is now barely enough for just the bread.

This quiet creep has become woven into the order of things; an extra layer of tax on already-taxed money. It eats quietly through every wallet: rich, poor and those in-between.

The poor feel it first and hardest; every rise in prices chips away at necessities, not choices. The middle-class watch savings shrink. The affluent can hold out longer and smile through the squeeze, but eventually everyone feels the erosion, not just of wealth, but of certainty.

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