1942, A 10 Paisa Coin and Other Stories

It started off like so many stories do, in that shady little place beside the fountain of light where the memories of generations and the experiences of a lifetime time blend to produce a singular moment, the moment of a lifetime.

Running. Through the dried up paddy fields and the burnt down villages. Two lonely souls. Running. Running from their past and from the ones that they held dearest to their heart. Running.

When I was small, I had this strange fascination with coins. No, I was not a collector; I never had the patience to be one. I was more interested in amassing this huge number of coins. May be it was just Uncle Scrooge cartoons rubbing off on me, but making tiny buildings out of columns of coins was a very favorite past-time of mine.

There’s no light for miles around. Only the moonlight plays around the foggy path, like wisps of luminosity trapped in a magical mesh. Suddenly the girl sits down. She can’t run anymore… The boy stops too. Their eyes meet, and a silent plea is conveyed. The boy comes up to her and takes the sack she is carrying. The girl quietly brushes aside a teardrop. Weakness has never been a luxury that she could afford.

The smallest coin still well in circulation when I was that age was the 10 paisa coin. Quite naturally, scant changes that used to find its way into my hands at that point of time would invariably end up with the nearest grocer in exchange for the equal amount in 10 paisa coins. This being the least troublesome of my eccentricities (pyromania being the other one (:-)) my family humored me.

A Japanese plane flies overhead, for a moment drowning the sound of the crickets eerily resounding through the area, as it hurries to wreck havoc. The couple keeps on crouching many minutes after the plane has left. They finally muster up enough courage to move. The deathly still of the night rustles in protest as they run through it into the villages that come in sight. But its all in vain, most of the villages have been burnt down by the bombings or are graves after the deadly famine of the ’42 summer…

Not that this habit of mine of mine did not come with its share of hazards. Anyone and everyone in need of loose change would often just grab a handful of my precious collection. A 3 year old cousin of mine even got one of them stuck up his nose, something that had to be operated on to make right. My little hobby lost lots of patrons that day…

They slowly trudge out from the last forest into a clearing. A sharp gasp escapes them. In front of them is the magnificent Ganga, sparkling like a magical carpet, as millions of narcissistic stars gaze down on it and admire their own beauty.

The end of the journey is near…

The couple starts on one last tired trot on the river bank…

The final nail on the coffin for my hobby was however when the government decided to stop minting anything lower than 50 paisa. Soon, it was very hard to find abundant 10 paisa coins in the market. And pocket money being on the few things unaffected by inflation, I could not change to 50 paisa coins either. My columns of coins soon disappeared, with chocolates and chips being the most favored investments…

They near a enormous structure, a steel grey structure shining dully in the moonlight, giving a glum proud reminder to the world around it of its superiority and strength as if reaches for the skies. The couple stand staring at the steel arches stretching from one side to the other, binding the mighty Ganga in man’s steel grasps. They see a ghat at a distance, one that in later times would be known as the Howrah Bridge Ghat. The holy threads on the trees around the ghat tell them that the place is holy. The girl goes down to the water and puts some of the holy water on her head. At a distance thousands of coins are spread all over the riverbed by pilgrims… The boy keeps on staring at them…

A couple of weeks ago, I was coming back from Howrah, when this apologetic auto-driver suddenly handed me a handful of 10 paisa coins to make up for the remaining change. Cliché as it might sound; I suddenly felt a sad tinge for those funny little habits of old. Not complaining, I pocketed it.

There is this place on the bridge, from which the religious people throw down coins to the river below. For the first time, I felt this over-powering urge to join them.

Rushing to the thronging footpath, I threw down one of the 10 paisa coins…

On the other side of the river is their future home, the Land of Dreams and Shadows, the City. They will start their life afresh, together. They walked up from the Ghat and started walking along the bridge. When they were halfway there the boy stopped. He removed a small bag from his back and opened it. A solitary coin shone back at him…

And at that point, for the first and last time in his life, my grandfather had taken out the coin and thrown it into the river praying for good luck…

And the magnificent rivers of time and water kept on flowing silently into eternity …