It was not just the housewife complaining bitterly that she
couldn’t pay the milkman when he arrived early on Thursday morning. The news
had gone around the night before that 500 and 1000-rupee notes had been
demonetised only to the extent of causing the hardship of queueing up in a bank
to exchange them for currency of lower denominations. Who was prepared to be
burdened with more such notes than they already had in their possession?

So while government hospitals were required to help people
in distress, it was a different story with medicine shops and even doctors.
Someone who had endured a terrible toothache through the night landed at a
dentist’s clinic in the morning only to be queried by the attendant on what
currency she had before she could be allowed to take her place in the dentist’s
chair. Medicine shops relented only to the extent of compelling customers to
pick up their needs for a full amount of Rs 500. The practice was adopted by
other retailers for purely practical reasons. A drastic fall in business –
something experienced in shopping malls and restaurants – would be far worse
than standing in a queue for an hour or so. But what would happen to busy
professionals? A colleague heard someone whispering in the metro that his boss
had told his driver that that the bank ritual was a more important task over
the next few weeks than sitting behind the wheel. Someone else was told to grab
a place in the queue early in the morning and inform the babu on his mobile as
the proxy approached the counter. Seldom has an official announcement caused
such an upheaval that had a mixture of pain and public welfare. There was a
general urge to preserve all the notes of smaller denominations one had for
emergencies. What if stationery had to be bought for the school going kid? Or
the sweeper had to be paid for special service? Or the family has to visit a
relative in the district? All this would require cash in denominations that
have suddenly become scarce.

A teacher may well be found lecturing on the compulsions of
the measure and the objectives that would be served. In closer circles she
could also be complaining that she and her family has had to survive on a
frugal meal of rice and vegetables because the fish vendor and even the local
store owner wouldn’t accept a 500 hundred rupee note. Anyone going to the
market would know that even a bagful of vegetables, cereals and oils cannot be
acquired for anything less than the demonetised denominations and there are just
not enough hundred-rupee notes to fill the gap. So what option is there other
than a simple meal? The boisterous young crowd at shopping malls may not have
the right amounts to buy tickets to the film premiere or the film festival? Is
there enough change to pay the dhobi or indulge in the irresistible delight of
biting into a kabiraji cutlet that is cooked in the roadside stall or even pay
a tip? The cash crunch may have made life a little more difficult than what had
been anticipated when the bombshell came on Wednesday. But while many would be
hassled, others could well run into unexpected gifts derived from cash that is
floating around – all for a greater cause.