Dirty Money

It was a sweet morning today. It is Vidya’s, my cousin’s birthday. I had a huge piece of delicious cake. The sweetness just doubled when I realized that I am having the cake only after completing my duty of posting my birth day wishes on her FB page. 

I looked at the first page on the news paper. There are no accidents, suicides, rapes, child abuses, even protests !, sweetness did not dampen at all. 

One thing that caught my attention was RBI’s announcement.

RBI is planning to withdraw currency notes which had been printed prior to year 2005 to reduce circulation of fake notes. So, those of you who have liquid cash at home, either black or white, please go through the reverse side of all of them carefully, how much ever big that bundle be. If you find no year printed on them, then get rid of them quickly. There is every likelihood of they been printed not by RBI  but by somebody else. If you produce those old notes in a bank after a few months, you will be harassed by the bank officials by many means, one prominent one would be by asking you to produce your aadhar card!

In my opinion, the currency notes need to be replaced every year if not more frequently. The treatment they get is so bad, they also need a break ! People use them as scribble pads to write phone numbers, convey ILU messages and symbols, to do quick arithmetic on how much more income tax needs to be paid – (mis)uses are many. They become so soiled and dirty with no time, at no fault of theirs.

I have seen some of them using their tongue to moist their fingers while counting notes. They tend to forget that those notes had gone through many "dirty" hands of rich/elite as well as those of poor. They better not dirty them more.

I reluctantly accept balance money from some vegetable vendors when they take currency from some part of their anatomy. I know, money is liked by all, but is it so darling to be kept there? I will not explain more on this. If people understood, well and good. Those who did not understand, it’s still better. I haven’t told them anything. 

I am in no two minds in suggesting RBI to print pictures of wanted criminals in some of the denominations. Not only that we can throw mud on their faces as much as we want, but also it would be easy for the cops to nab them. ( this reminded me of the news I read yesterday. A wanted criminal posted his own “wanted ad” in his FB page. A lady cope “liked” it in FB and chatted with him for a while to know his whereabouts and caught him. Yet another use of FB ! ).

We had a magic show at our school while I was in 3^rd standard. Magician after doing a few tricks asked whether any one of us had a 5 rupee note. ( that time with 5 rupees one can buy 2 KG of rice). Many of us didn’t have. Those who had were reluctant to give, they would have been happier to part with their text books instead. One bold guy from back row gave the note to the magician. The magician made a few noises, similar to those made by chimpancies at Mysore zoo ( I loved interacting with them whenever I visited there, my favorite ones ). Then he lighted a match and burnt the 5 rupee note, in front of us. “Thud”, we heard a noise. The bold guy at the back fainted, fell down. He could not imagine going back home without giving that note to the grocer. Sprinkling little water, showing him his original 5 rupee note, he regained consciousness and enjoyed the rest of the show. Even the magicians do not spare these poor currencies.

I agree, rupee has been always week, much weaker now. But it does not deserve  this level of ill-treatment.