Small change

Taking my friends around Calcutta, I finally realised that what had been a passing irritant was now more of an obsession; or maybe because I almost never paid up for myself at little shops around the corner of my house. In a way, I was almost forewarned about this by Amit Chaudhuri this summer. I read this article in The Telegraph and I can vouch for the humour, if you perceive any, being born out of the deepest sense of agony and frustration.

My rude awakening came when I attempted to break a five-hundred rupee note at a stall which sold cheap chicken and egg rolls as I had promised my visiting friend who thought rolls were pure bliss at Delhi's 34 Chowringhee Lane. What if I get you bliss with twenty five rupees off the top? was my offer. As the cook thrashed away in his own sweat and punched-up dough, I negotiated with the stocky, moustachioed man at the counter. It was coming to, I think, thirty-five rupees and I offered him a newfreshcrispofftheoven five-hundred rupee note. He paused and looked at me. His expression had changed from friendly indifference to suspicion and even hostility. He seemed to be making a great effort to contain himself. Give me thirty rupees, only thirty, he said in a voice that was drawn like a sword, quietly menacing and not without some condescension. I'm sorry I don't have change I said- pretending to rummage my wallet again. He shook his head and looked away, no change he said. I thought he implied- no rolls then sonny, you can scrum. Thankfully, my friend had a fifty-rupee note and he saved the day. Completely befuddled and suddenly gripped by a resolve to get to the bottom of the issue- I decided that I would not go home without breaking my five hundred. I remembered breaking a thousand-rupee note for a packet of chips outside a metro station in Delhi. I wondered if this was what they meant by cultural gap- or at least a difference in attitude. My demands to break the five-hundred rupee note varied from bottles of Coke, a plate of steamed chicken momo, a packet of cheap cigarettes and some other things. I couldn't purchase any of it. I was met with irritation, outrage conatined in a vigorous shake of the head, pure laziness to conduct a transaction and a recommendation to go and break it somewhere else. Amazed, I finally went into one of those new swanky coffee shops with laid back sofas and aproned waiters and managed to break it for a cappuccino and an espresso. Thankfully, I suppose because we had already drunk our coffee, the young man at the counter couldn't do more than feign a slight annoyance at being offered that note with the obscenely gargantuan amount written on it and pleadingly asked if I had four rupees. No, I said, no change at all.