The high pitched animated debates
on TV channels have sneaked into the bedrooms these days. The loud deliberations enlighten every member
of the household – Indians, by nature, stop-by to watch any street-fight and
enjoy the ‘tamasha’. Every house member
has started aligning much strongly to a viewpoint as these debates never propagate
a reconciliatory tone ever.
One lazy Sunday morning, my wife
brought a huge bundle of papers – a collection of various junk dividend mails,
some receipts and a few other sundry papers. She referred to a big government
advertisement in the newspaper on ‘Swachh Bharat’ campaign and just said – ‘let
us start from here. I want this bundle
to be reviewed and disposed today. ‘
Next day, while I was hurriedly having
my breakfast, my wife brought out a bunch of Rupees 500 and 1000 notes that she
had collected from her numerous hand-bags.
She wanted me to help her exchange these notes. I was happy that demonetization had unearthed
this treasure that I was unaware of but that meant a couple of more visits to
the Bank. The bunch of these notes totalled around fifty thousand. I was taken
aback and told her that it was unfair to keep these many currency notes out of
circulation. This would hurt our economy and that she should have kept such
savings in a bank account. She realized the criticality of the situation and
only expressed a silent regret.
Later that night, as the family
was getting ready for the dinner, my father brought a big bundle of notes in
his hands. He told me that he had kept
this cash earmarked for his ‘last rites’ expenses as he did not want that
burden on anybody. I was shocked to see three lakh rupees in cash as I was
already struggling to manage my own cash.
In deep thoughts to find some viable solution I had a look at my wife
and found a victorious sneer on her face as if she was reminding me of the
sermon that I gave her that very morning.
I returned this morning after a
week-long official trip. I had picked a premium brand of Scotch this time from
the duty-free. As I was keeping the bottles in my cupboard, I realized that the
four other bottles that I had collected during my earlier travels were
missing. When I asked my wife she said
she had cleaned the cupboard. It seems she was quite impressed by my advice, on
her cupboard full of clothes, that she should dispose of stuff which she hadn’t
used for 6 months. She had given those bottles to her brother who visited her
over the week. I was distraught at losing those cherished collections that
would have made me a hero in a gathering of friends but obviously my wife would
never understand that. I meekly said – ‘You could have checked with me. This
was a day-light robbery.’ She smiled and said – ‘No. That was just a surgical
strike.’
