BENGALURU: Back in the day, money meant cash – physical notes and coins that rustled and clinked. To send money to my hostel, my parents sent a ‘Money Order’ – in which they gave money to the local post office. And I waited thousands of miles away, hoping nobody robbed the postman as he brought me the money in a rectangular black bag. When we carried money, we hid it in a ‘secret pocket’ and looked at everybody with suspicious eyes. School fees, medical expenses and wedding burdens were paid for with wads of cash – and nobody was mistaken for a gangster.
Debit cards made life relatively easier – but came with their unique set of problems. You had to find an ATM, stand in line, and hope it was dispensing cash in the correct denominations. ATM robberies were common, so you drew your money and counted it while praying that the guy behind you was an honest, tax-paying citizen and not a psychopath. You swiped your card and waited like an anxious teenager proposing for the first time – hoping your card wasn’t ‘declined’.
You had to carry your card at all times. And a lost wallet meant a sudden dip in standards of living. Then, there came net banking and the inherently evil money wallet system. But UPI changed everything. I float from establishment to establishment, buying whatever catches my fancy. The only problem with UPI though, is that you don’t FEEL your money slipping away from you. I scan an image, tap in a few numbers, and voila! A fairy magically takes my money and drops it in the shopkeepers’ bank account! Amidst such paradigm-shifting innovations, it is the humble coin that has completely disappeared from our lives. I haven’t seen the 50p coin – of which you needed 10 to buy a bubble gum – in years. And the square-shaped 5p coin left our lives with sparrows and cable television.
Coins today are treated like hindrances – you find one, you pick it up and place it on the fridge. But back in the day, coins were collected and slipped carefully into a clay ‘matka’. This matka jingle-jangled for months till a hammer cracked it open. The money saved was then used to buy a new frock, or a cricket bat (the two binary options that Indian markets offered to kids back then). You carried coins to a temple to bribe Gods – praying for immunity from tests, scary teachers, and board exams. Grandparents slipped in coins to give to those asking for arms outside temples, mosques, and gurudwaras. To sneak out a note required skills and a determined mind.
But you could sneak a coin out of your father’s pocket or mother’s purse. These coins were used to purchase items that parents didn’t realise the value of – bubble gums, trinkets, or the scented eraser that erased nothing but smelled lovely. You could use a coin to check your weight at a railway station or drop it into a holy river while travelling across a bridge. A coin was crucial to the beginning of a cricket match. You could drop a coin into a phone booth to make an urgent call to a friend. Or request a lover to recharge your phone. The government tried introducing the `10 coin, which didn’t exactly send the nation into a tizzy. Why would you not carry a note, instead of a heavy object that looks like something stolen from the Gringotts bank? There might be two sides to a coin – but they’re both rather sad. Today, my coins sit scattered on my desk, waiting for a purpose – silently judging me for dumping them when life gave me easier options.