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Changing ways
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Small change has a way of disappearing innocuously like a Bangalore bungalow: it's there one day, gone the next time you pass by.
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THERE'S A little, round, shiny 10-paise coin that's been trapped in my change purse since 2002. Every time I fumble for change it attempts a jailbreak by pretending to be 25p, and when it's caught out, it gives me an ingratiating wink and says beseechingly: "I'm starved for company, won't you please help me?" I make a mental note to find it four mates and set them all free for 50p, but there's not a ghost of a chance that I'll come across a single one in future. Unless yet another rascal plays the 25p trick on me (which is how the one in my purse found its way there).
On its own, a 10p coin is entirely worthless. All fares and prices have re-arranged themselves to render it a non-entity. No self-respecting beggar would accept it. No heads would turn if it fell to the ground. Its self-esteem must have taken a real drubbing, poor thing. Small change has seldom looked as small as this crumb of metal with a 15 mm diameter and no weight to speak of. It could be hazardous to children, too. Visualise a curious urban toddler seized with the desire to conduct a nasal experiment ("how far up my nose will this object go?"). In the absence of seed or grain this gleaming bit is sorely tempting. She sticks it up a nostril and has to be rushed to a doctor forthwith.
Small change has a way of disappearing innocuously like a Bangalore bungalow: it's there one day, gone the next time you pass by. Over the years, when you weren't looking, the one, two, three, and five paise coins went out of circulation. Change is a measure of how the world has changed. The phrase "rupee-anna-pi" is a hazy memory, and so is the copper pice with a large hole in the centre (which later became a handy substitute for a washer while tightening a nut). Now you discover that the boiled sweet you used to buy for 10p costs five times as much. By the way, in the place where I grew up, "will you give me 10 paise?" was how a boy asked a girl for a kiss. I'm sure that if the slang is still in use, the price of a kiss must have been upgraded to keep pace with inflation.
Today the auto meter leaps in convenient multiples of 50 and bus fares have been rounded off to the nearest rupee. People no longer buy petrol by the litre, thanks to the new computerised pumps. Instead of asking for a "full tank" they order fuel for Rs. 500. All these are measures adopted to beat what is known as "the change problem", a term I've heard for as long as I have lived in this city and yet received no satisfactory explanation for. I remember being stunned by the abundance of metal currency that poured out of cash registers abroad. Nobody in foreign parts ever shakes their head and says "chillare illa". Every cent or penny due to you is faithfully returned and soon your wallet is unable to withstand the burden, so you start shelling out change when you travel on a bus (22 pence), buy vegetables (57 cents), and so on. Whether you buy a bag or a knife or a postage stamp, there are single digits involved.
Here, if a bill exhibits an inconvenient figure, the change is royally ignored. Naturally, you always end up the loser. STD booths, for example, which insist that you "please tender exact change", are making a fortune by not practising what they preach. A friend fretted about the time he'd made a call to Chennai and the bill had come to Rs. 14.60. Did the booth owner generously forego 60 p? Forget it. Did he return 40 p? At least 25 p? No way.
He rounded it off in his favour, to Rs. 15. On the thousands of long-distance calls made in a month from his booth, how much "extra" do you think he makes? The same goes for your local pizza joint which gives you a bill, say, for Rs. 163.85, knowing that you would pay Rs. 164 without a murmur and tip the delivery boy besides. But where do you think the small change goes? Pizza mein bhi kuch kaala hain.
Those who owe you change try to make you feel ashamed to ask for it. That game doesn't work with me, for I have a pretty thick skin. Take the half-litre milk I buy daily from the corner bakery. It costs Rs. 6 but the bakery owner includes his commission of 25p. More often than not, he cannot lay his hands on 25p in his coin box and therefore it is adjusted against the following day's milk. Every day I have to ask myself: "Today, do I pay Rs. 6 or Rs. 6.50?" As you can imagine, on the day that I happen to need one litre my calculations are seriously upset.
There is a related issue here. Hey you, four-anna coin, you'd better not look so smug beside the lonely 10p. Watch out. It's your neck, next, on the chopping block.
C.K. MEENA
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