Oh my god, Tuesday night was unforgettable no? So much tension in the air, America was voting, Prime Minister was speaking, we were running out of LPG gas at our house and I didn’t know how to handle the situation. I mean one person can take only so much, no?
As soon as the honourable Prime Minister started speaking, I started searching for it under the bed, sofa and shoe stand. Before you consider giving undue credit to my financial health and think I have hoards of black money stashed away in these places, let me clarify – I was searching for my television remote because the darn television was running on mute and I couldn’t hear a word. (My wife later found it in the toilet. Turns out, the TV remote and my mobile phone are exactly the same size.)
And so I heard the big news. 500- and 1000-rupee notes were no longer valid. Some news tickers said they were even ‘illegal’. Oh my god. What have I done? Suddenly I have turned into a criminal! I possess illegal goods in my wallet! My first thought was to immediately get rid of them. What should I do? Donate it? Flush it down the toilet? What if I give it to the grocery store guy? Will he notice?
My troubles were short-lived. I opened my wallet and found the following items: six different god pictures (correction — same god, six different pictures), all given by my mother over the last 36 months. Twelve ATM receipts. One hundred and twelve business cards. Also, a blank A4 sheet neatly folded four times (what?!), one 2BHK apartment with covered parking (vegetarians only) and three twenty-rupee notes.
You see, unlike the black money hoarders who, I hear, hide cash under their bed or inside the water closet, my money is completely safe and is exactly where it should be: banks (in the form of repaid EMIs), milk vendor, newspaper agent, landlord, apartment secretary, ironing guy and water supplies guy. I am now convinced that this is the best way to keep your money safe from inflation and demonetisation.
Disappointed that I won’t be subject to the disappointment others are experiencing, I stepped outside to overcome my FOMO (fear of missing out.) They said ATMs would stop functioning from midnight, so I headed to the nearest one to withdraw cash. The ATM was next to a temple, and for a moment, I mistook the queue outside for the temple queue: I thought the Vinayagar statues were drinking milk again. After successful withdrawal of some cash, I now wanted to get rid of it. Don’t ask me why. I just had to. Everybody was doing it.
Though the government said that the notes will not be valid only from Wednesday, many people decided to play it safe right away. I went to a petrol bunk and asked if they will accept a 500-rupee note, and the attendant promptly said that he would, but he had no change money left and so I would have to buy petrol for 500 rupees, at which point I realised I had come on foot and so I left the place quietly.
I decided to book a cab. Maybe the driver will accept cash. Normally, app-based cab drivers call up and ask for the mode of payment, and when I say e-wallet, they refuse the ride. This time, when the cab driver asked me “mode of payment,” I proudly said cash. He refused the ride anyway. So I walked back home.
I logged on to social media, and as usual, there were highly-nuanced discussions over the pros and cons of this development. Just kidding. On the one end there were outright claims that the entire country would be cleansed of black money overnight and that the new currency notes would have a chip to track down the notes. If you ordered a pizza, all you had to do was give your currency note number and the delivery person would track you down. Genius! (Meanwhile, some WhatsApp forwards even claimed that the new currency notes had additional features such as a movie-on-demand facility that plays in HD quality, apart from being waterproof and containing 22 vitamins, as well as aloe vera extracts for dandruff-free hair.)
At the other end of the spectrum were people who were upset that the government had taken a haphazard decision without any plan. I understand if people were upset at the government, but people were also upset with me for no reason! One guy on Facebook gave me a colourful name and then asked me if I even understood what hardships and sufferings millions of people will go through and how I could be so heartless for not doing anything about it, and suddenly I started feeling bad for no fault of mine. Arrey! I didn’t make this announcement. In fact I don’t make any announcements. Well, other than things like ‘Muniamma has come!’ or ‘Coffee is ready!’
The Internet is such a mysterious place.
So anyway, that night and all of next day was spent alternating between thinking how to tackle this new development and checking my bank balance to be instantly reminded about the pointlessness of my anxiety.
It was an interesting 24 hours — a period that both Americans and I spent thinking about change. Donald Trump was elected their new president, and according to many, things were going to change a lot. As for me, it was spent asking that very crucial question ‘Change irukka anna?’
The Local Tea Party is a popular Chennai blogger known for his quirky prose. (Note to worried readers: We didn’t forget to edit this. This is how he writes!)
Best known by his handle ( @localteaparty ), he likes to open conversations with his favourite (and undoubtedly self-coined) quote: “The pen is mightier than the sword and all ok, but don’t try to fight with a pen. Otherwise there will be ink all over you.”
