SMALL CHANGE, BIG MEMORIES

From June 30, the 25 paise coin will no longer be legal tender. It is being phased out because it is unviable to produce the coin, because of the rising metal costs.

As yet another coin makes its exit from the Indian currency scene, thechavanni, the char-anna or the naal-anna evoked nostalgia among old timers and even the not-so-old.

Tiruchi-based businessman, 50-year-old Mr Gopinath Aiyar recalls how four decades ago, he and his brother would earn 25 paise — a sum they considered princely — by fetching water for their mother.

“My father was a station master at Kodambakkam in Chennai. In those days there used to be acute shortage of drinking water in summer. We would walk some 2 km to fetch drinking water either in the thick of night or as early as 4 a.m. The incentive was the 25 paise,” he said.

With this 25 paise, the young Gopinath would hire a cycle for three hours and ride around. He also describes how 10 years later, in his first job at Lucas TVS in Chennai's suburban Padi, the coin would fetch him a sumptuous breakfast ofidlis and vadas.

For 49-year-old Mr Dony Kuriakose, the Delhi-based Director of Edge Executive Search, the chavanni brings back memories of a horrific accident, when he was just eight years old.

“In those days, 25 paise used to fetch an orange lolly and I had just bought one and was happily eating it and walking when I was hit by a motor-bike. I was laid up for 25 days and still have the scars,” he says.

Several 60-year-olds in the Capital described the cholley bhaturey they would get for 25 paise “in the good old days”. For image management guru Mr Dilip Cherian, the 25 paise instantly brings back memories of Coca-Cola, a rare treat those days. “I studied in Calcutta, and the big treat after Church on Sundays used to be money to buy a Coke. That used to cost 25 paise,” he says.

He also remembers buying postal envelopes with 25 paise stamps — as opposed to inland letters — “to send letters to special friends”.

Eighty-year-old retired schoolteacher Mrs Yeshodhara Balakrishnan remembers visiting the beach in her home town Tellicherry in Kerala in the 1960s, just as fishermen would be returning with their catch.

“For four annas, we got about 50 sardines fresh from the sea,” she says. “And, we got a mackerel for one rupee,” she says, wistfully.

For the political movers and shakers in the Capital, chavanni takes them back to the days when for 25 paise, they could join the Congress party.

And, for avid film-goers, the chavanni immediately brings to mind sitting on the front row and passing colourful comments on the movie.

SOURCE: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/industry-and-economy/banking/article2113386.ece