Value of Money - 1

As I rest here behind a glass frame, with people occasionally glancing over me with curious interest, I realize my frequency of slipping into nostalgia has increased alarmingly. But it’s not my fault either. When you’re 120 years old and have nothing to do, nowhere to go, and no fresh air to feel, the lines between yesterday, today and tomorrow are bound to blur. 120 years is a lot more than most of my 5,00,000 odd identical twins got to see, as many of them burnt, or rotted, or drenched, or got torn, or lost, or were devoured by termites and rodents. There are many forms of demise that my kind is likely to meet. But as luck would have it, I survived all of these to land up here at a place called Jaipur Museum, with a plaque below my glass frame engraved with precise information.

50 Rupees Currency Note,

Government of India,

1991.

1991. It seems such a long time ago, when I first gained consciousness lying flat between 2 of my twins. We spent the first few days coming to grips with our existence. The questions that constantly bounced back and forth among all thousands of us were – "Who were we? Where were we? What the hell were these colourful designs on our body? And were we supposed to spend all our life pressed uncomfortably close to each other?" Even though all of us were twins in appearance, there were many variations in our personalities. Some were vainly optimistic – “Look at us! We’re so perfect! Crisp and glossy!” while others remained morbid – “What’s the point of our life? I’m sure it’ll end any second now in horrible, harrowing death”. As for me, I just stayed quiet and tried to figure out what exactly I was.

One day, suddenly I felt myself being lifted and carried somewhere. And then, with no warning whatsoever, there was light! A giant effortlessly lifted my second cousins, then my first cousins, then my immediate brothers, and finally me, and handed us out to another giant. “Here’s your 2 Lakh Rupees Sir. Thanks for banking with us. Hope your daughter’s marriage is a wonderful success.” “Thanks for your wishes. And Remember Mishra ji, you have to be there personally to bless Shruti”, replied the recipient giant as he put me in his shirt’s pocket.

 

The next few days were among the happiest of my life. I came to really like the gentle giant, called ‘Manchanda ji’ by others, as he was continuously traveling to all sorts of fancy places with me peeping from his pocket. The place where he lived was decked up from top to bottom with all sorts of flowers, and fountains, and chandeliers, and giggling giantesses and laughing giants. The colours and noise reached their crescendo one night, as the whole place seemed to explode into a spectacle of lights. The sound of laughter intoxicated the ambiance to a dizzying high, when a dancing Manchanda ji pulled me out of his pocket, swirled me thrice over the best-dressed giant’s head and shoved me into his pocket. “You have my blessings and my happiness, son. I hope Shruti brings as much joy in your life as she brought in mine for all these years”.

Hmm.. So maybe I was Happiness.

What followed was an elaborate process involving fire, flowers and smiles with the giant and giantess going through uncountable rituals in the matter of a few hours. ‘Bride’ and ‘groom’ they were called, informed my cocky neighbour in the giant’s pocket.

In the wee hours of night, when all the noise had subsided and a warm silence had taken over, I witnessed something so beautiful and pure that it will remain with me over the next 120 years as well. Leaving the celebrations behind, the groom and the bride went in a large, dimly-lit room. At first, they were reluctant in each other’s presence, but gradually came close. With the lights turned down, the tenderness that followed makes me blush even to this day.

A few days after that, just as I was getting comfortable with my new life in the groom’s wallet, he went to a nearby market. Suddenly, an unfamiliar hand grasped the wallet, and in a flash the groom was left behind, clearly unaware of my absence. My temporary new residence was called a pick-pocket, as my new neighbours explained. But he didn’t keep me for long. Barely after a week, he took me out of his wallet and handed me to a sad looking woman.

Even though I was Happiness, she didn’t seem very happy to hold me. She clutched me tight in her hand, went to a small room, and applied red and yellow and all sorts of garish colours on her face. I don’t know if it was my imagination but she seemed as if she was deliberately trying to make herself look ugly. Finally, after she was done, she cast me a disgusting glance and muttered “It’s sick what I have to do for you...”. I had no idea what she was about to do for me.

In the next couple of hours, I witnessed a macabre unfolding of the same ritual that took place between the bride and the groom, with none of the tenderness, or warmth, or care that I had remembered earlier. Instead, there was an all-permeating, suffocating sadness in every particle, every object in the small, dingy room, but nowhere more so than in the eyes of the new bride.

And looking at her, I wondered if I was really Happiness… I couldn’t help but feel I was Sadness. Of the worst kind.

(To be continued...)