Chavanni died last week. But the Reserve Bank of India’s unemotional announcement couched in official language—‘Coins of denomination of 25 paise will cease to be legal tender from June 30, 2011’—conveyed nothing of the immense sadness associated with the death of this lowly coin and, with it, the passing of an entire era in the man-money relationship in India. Coins of 1, 2, 3, 5, 10 and 20 paise denominations had vanished long ago. Now chavanni (four annas) is gone. Soon, athanni (eight annas or 50 paise coin) too will probably be dead ‘demonitised’, in RBI’s pitiless lingo. All money from then onwards will be counted only in rupees. When that happens, there will be nothing left of the species called ‘paisa’ in India. Has anyone paused to spare a thought on what the death of ‘paisa’ means for the social, cultural and psychological history of India? Mourning resurrects memories. I remember the many things I did with chavanni and with other coins of lesser value when I was young. The first ‘rice plate’ I ate, while on a school outing, cost only 25 paise. The cinema ticket in an itinerant tent theatre that I frequented in my mother’s village during vacation months cost less—10 paise (for kids). The ‘pocket money’ of five paise that my grandfather occasionally gave us when I was studying in first standard was enough for me to buy a handful of locally made sweets in the next-door village shop. The boatman who ferried us across the river to the village on the other bank took no money at all. In the barter system that was still prevalent in our village in the 1960s, my grandfather gave him—and also the shoe-maker, barber and other rural service providers—grains, jaggery and other farm produce after harvest. It was an era when the rich were called ‘paisewale’. Now, with paisa itself on the brink of extinction, the rich are called millionaires and billionaires, and their millions and billions are counted not even in rupees but in dollars. How much India has changed in just 40-50 years!
IE
