50Rupees aka 1$

How will your day/life changes if you get 50 bucks? Hmm...Clueless..Breathless... Phew jerk, I am talking about 50Rs not 50$.
A 50Rs is approximately 1USD. A litre of petrol, half Kg of apple, 1 Kg of rice, half kg of chicken, bribe a traffic police, a badminton cock, a bottle of local beer, a pirated movie CD, a “readers digest” magazine, ..Etc. The minimum I spend a day is around 2-3$. The average daily income of a common man in rural outskirts is around 50Rs. Has the value of 50Rs plummeted relatively?

Let me reminisce an incident, during the midst of 1994, an uninvited gentleman knocked our doors. He politely claimed to be a police man not in a regular outfit. My eldest brother has just successfully cleared an interview with a huge public sector and the police man has been sent as a part of the verification. (Verification is a process in which the candidate’s whereabouts is closely studied, measured, scanned and a report will be crafted). The report gives a brief about the behavioural nature of the candidate and the observations from neighbours and friends. Apparently the short cut to get a composite and healthy report is through bribe. (Remember we are talking about the most sacred, diversified, corrupt democracy of the world. Listen what Gandhi said, “Work is worship”).

The surprise visit has to be prudently indulged without any fizzle and unfortunately my parents don’t have a single penny to bribe, as it was month end. We were in dire straits. Papa ordered my second brother, Giri to borrow 50Rs from an uncle (vaman uncle and aunty) who hails in the perimeters of our house (5 minutes run). Giri, unruffled took the back doors, jumped the fence made a stunning beeline to Uncle’s house. He gathered the footsteps in aplomb, hastily galloped and tweaked through the boulevards with an approximate rhythm like Carl Lewis. He returned after 20 minutes with 50Rs and was pounding faster. He couldn’t feel his maimed feet and sat on the veranda and commented “I should try for 100 metres Olympics next time”.

The police man hesitatingly accepted the bribe and left happily. It was an unexpected incident in our family which remarkably found the fruit with the steadfast effort of my brother. Giri was proud and delighted for his accomplishment and in the chaos my parents forgot to appreciate him. But he neither piqued nor gouged

We often forget the past, the roads we travelled, the heydays, the mountain of challenges and success. It is not a rocket science that the money will come today and vanishes tomorrow. An excerpt from Gita,“What have you lost, that you are weeping? What have you bought, that you have lost? What have you made, that have been destroyed? You bought not anything. What you have, you got from here. What was given, was given here. What you took, you took from this universe. What you gave, you gave unto this universe. You have come empty handed and shall go empty handed.. What is yours today was somebody else's in the past and will be somebody else's in the future.” These incidents remind that value of money is relative to time.
At least these currency notes remind us of the smiling Gandhi.
Hail Gandhi ....Hail 50Rs.