the demise of the 50 paisa

Waking up to find that people reject you to your face. That’s got to be the worst ever morning. It’s relatively easy to hear people say you’re useless, especially if you know you’ve been sort of out of the scene for a while now. But to find that because of a few rejections, you become rejectable? Now that’s a tough life. Why even get off the assembly line then?
Even the otherwise penny-and-pound-wise rickshaw-walla rejected it. “But I’m giving you four of them… that makes TWO whole rupees,” I explained.
“But madam yeh nahi chalti”
Well, I took it from someone. It chalo-ed to me…
“Arre madam…chalta paisa dena. Koi nahi letha isko.”
But the RBI still makes it, right? Stuff is still priced with the half.
(An annoying realization hits me about how I never bother to collect the change in such situations. But as long as this unreasonable man doesn’t know it, I can have any incriminating realizations secretly in my head)

The rejecter called on the parking attendant. Ask him if he’ll take it, he goaded me. “He’s your friend ok, he’ll be as unreasonable. I’ll call a neutral someone. Aap lenge na isko?”
The vegetable vendor looked blankly at my palm. “Yeh nahi chalti madam”
What is with these people?!!

I used to buy a fistful of orange-toffee once. And a few years down, a band-aid plaster. Then it clinked around at the bottom of my bag for a while. Afterwards I didn’t bend to pick it up when it rolled into floor crevices. Then it was useful in even numbers, to be given away when you wanted to thin your wallet. And now, chalti nahi. When I said it was this or nothing else, the rickshaw-wallah actually went with ‘nothing else’. It’s a horrible way to die, I tell you, being less than your value.

first impressions

So now, Delhi. Incredibly beautiful, sprawling and breezy. But the shade of brown-green in trees here irritates me. Makes me nostalgic for the wet, healthy green of south India. The roads are wide, but honk-ful nonetheless. The house comes with two balconies from which we can feel grateful about the brown-greeness of a well-maintained Welfare Association garden. There are security guards we have to soon ask to not salute us. There are two maids who arrive everyday at 8 a.m. sharp, speaking in an outrageous blend of loud Tamil, Telugu and Hindi. There is a Khanna for water cans, a Jasmeet for garbage bags, and an eager Pandey for anything else we would have to lift a finger for. We want none of them, but they keep offering themselves. Because Dilli mein there’s a ‘ladka’ for everything.

The vegetable buying, fridge filling, dish washing has “settled” written all over it. It was all done before as independents, but now it’s done for two. Which means it invites “All domesticated, eh?” jibes from friends who’re not sure how much anything has changed, if at all. Anyway, the electric wire coils and ready-to-make mixes peeping out of corners and constantly moving furniture, betray unsettlement.

But when the smug IAS officer Mr. Arora from upstairs said, “In north India, no one will understand if you both have different surnames. I’m Mr. Arora, so she (points to beautifully graying, disapproving wife) is automatically Mrs. Arora. It works like that. You have no choice.” Mrs. Arora sipped her chai, “He doesn’t know anything. You both are wonderful children. You don’t want to change anything from before? You absolutely need not.”

We’ve taken Mrs. Arora’s advice very seriously.