Changes

The Change - Shortage and its Blessings


The conductor inside the bus asked “Do you change” meaning “do you have change” in broken English, and my friend replied I don’t change I remain like this as he did not speak Hindi and new to the City – New Delhi.

I explained to him that the conductor is asking for loose coins equivalent to 0.55 paisa- being the bus fare from Ghaziabad to Shadhra – in the year 1969. The fear of loosing a definite 5 paisa was more than anything else on my friend’s face.

Based on observations and personal experience, many gained more than its worth (of change), by refusing to return the balance in most cases of cost of the tickets.

It appears that the authorities also did not bother about fixing cost of a journey ticket to a rounded off value, so that there was no problem in tendering the change.

I had quarrels with bus conductors on several occasions and demanded the balance after taking the correct value of the ticket. In most cases, the conductor often wrote the balance value owed to the passenger on the back of the ticket and signed it. The commuter was then requested to collect it from the transport company’s office.

This system had its own flaws, as many didn’t live close to the bus depot nor they had the time to take effort to retrieve the small balance.

At times, I told the conductor that he has robbed the public to build his own house and suggested that he should name it PUBLIC HOUSE.

As I personally did not want to encourage giving away 5 or 10 paisa like this, started collecting and saving changes for helping other friends who more often than not, used buses for moving around Delhi and its neighbor hood.

The first one to help me was my uncle, who dropped all the change he got into a box on daily basis. There was always an increment of 5 to 30 paisa daily from this collection.
I also made sure that I will never part with any small change.

During my college days, the bus fare to college was 14 paisa to my college. Interestingly, many of my class mates lost 2 paisa daily to the conductor as it was difficult to return 1 paisa every time. Eventually, I decided to walk the distance by straight away saving the entire 28 paisa daily- 6 days a week.

My financial condition was very bad then, so this method of tiny saving besides taking care of my health, provided me with a sizable sum to buy blank sheets for writing notes.
One ream of paper was sold at Rs.7 in those days, and I purchased 3 reams per year.
I realized that, the value of this small amount when put together.

Collecting changes and saving it helped me to learn more about saving. Most of my relatives, learned about my habit / hobby, approached me for change, for donating to poor people (alms) during their pilgrimage to Kasi, Haridwar and other holy places via Delhi.

At one point, I got some gifts in return for huge change provided for an elderly member in our family. Soon my mother learned about this thru’ the relatives,( who spoke of my generosity in providing required loose coins for their holy trips) that ,I’m saving LOTS OF MONEY IN LOOSE COINS. On one occasion, I had to send R501 (in loose change to my mother for a family function and to be used for giving away to Brahmins and poor ladies.) with my uncle who flew to my native place. Jokingly he told me that this 501 in change would be the heaviest single luggage in the flight.

In this quest for looking for change, I came across old coins and some different ones from other countries. I retained some of them for my collection.

I became user friendly with some bus conductors who instead of asking for correct change, often accepted the nearest small value for the ticket ( say, took 75 paisa instead of 80 paisa) Between 1965 and 2009, I tendered change and purchased tickets denominated from 14 paisa to Rs.3.50. The face value were paisa 14, 35, 45, 80, 90, 110,120,160,190, 210,240,270 and 290.

These, not my imaginary figures, but face value of tickets fixed and printed and put into use (in the past 45 years) for the benefit of bus conductors. One can imagine how much of this went into the pockets of unscrupulous bus conductors.

Then there were good among them as well. I know of some DTC conductors, who trusted me to return change in my next trip, as I was frequent traveler during my stay in Ghaziabad.- in the 70’s

Now it is the turn of conductors here in Coimbatore. The shortage is not 2, 5, or 10 paisa any more. It is also increased. Now it is 50 paisa, Re1, Re.2.

Who ever is lucky gets the change. The benefit due to shortage of change goes with the change in time.

The shrewd and clever one wins the change.


Siva – Adapted from Personal Dairies.