Heard some shocking news about a businessman I know. "Jahan decided not to sing to his account books this time," his wife said. "He chanted a series of verses to his laptop instead."

It's progress I suppose. Business people in Europe and North America never sing to their computers. (In Texas, they shoot the poor things!)

In large patches of Asia, from Singapore to India to Malaysia to Hong Kong's Indian community, these important ancient traditions are preserved.

You've heard of Devali, the festival at which people light hundreds of tiny oil lamps? Well, a less well-known aspect of it is the Prayers to the Account Books, in which blessings are addressed to business ledger books. I am not making this up. "Dear Account Books, inflation is back and I need you guys to be filled with way bigger numbers, hear what I'm saying? Or I may have to spill coffee on you, know what I mean? Amen." (A Hindu reader swears this works.)

For the past year or so, these guys have put PCs or laptops on their altars instead. “In view of rapid computerisation, most traders across the country have changed their accounting system from traditional Bahi-Khata to computer system," Praveen Khandelwal, president of the Confederation of All India Traders, said to the International Asian

News Service. (Bahi-Khata is an ancient hand-written accounting system.) "On the occasion of Devali, the trading community is worshipping their computers," he continued.

Housewife Gauri Sharma told reporters: "Generally we see shopkeepers praying to their account books on Devali, but this is the first time I am seeing puja (blessings] being done to computers."

An American friend saw this as proof that Asians were gullible and superstitious. I found his view outrageous. "You call us gullible, yet you're the ones who believe that the tooth fairy exists, Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, the world will end in 2012, Justin Bieber has talent, etc."

Two days later I saw him praying to his computer! He'd been working for ages on a document, and then tried to save it but got the message: "Not Responding."

Eye closed, he whispered: "Please please PLEASE work."

Anyway, most financial history books say Italian monk Luca Pacioli invented accounting in 1494. Rubbish. Business people in Asia have been doing Bahi-Khata for more than 2000 years. Chinese financial documents stretch back to the dawn of history. "Sell theme park shares as private zoo profits tipped to fall 37 percent due to recent dinosaur extinction."

Now if you'll excuse me, I have a pressing engagement. I know it's not Devali but my HSBC current account is in extremely poor health, possibly close to death. A couple of hymns are urgently required.

I plan to sing Eric Clapton's Let It Grow: "Let it grow, let it grow, let it blossom, let it flow.”

But I suspect it's been listening to the Dixie Chicks song: Long Time Gone.

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