It was when the lady teller at my bank tried to pass off old currency notes to me that I woke up to the issue of pre-2005 currency. ‘The notes are all pre-2005,’ I protested. ‘What can I do, sir, I give you what other customers have deposited with me.’ I had to use the little persuasive skill I have to convince the good lady to hand me over notes which I won’t have to exchange in an another month or so. The thought of all that paper money coming in the open out of the bank vaults, strong boxes, mattresses, pillow covers and sundry other places of concealment, only to be exchanged with crisp new notes in mere couple of months, kept me awake most of the night. Why RBI had to do this, I wondered. If only I could ask good old Kaga Bushundi!
In the early hours of the morning, I heard someone calling me ‘Beta!’ The voice was queer – as if some man was pretending to be a crow or a crow was trying to speak like a man. I dismissed it as a dream. But the calls persisted. At the fifth ‘Beta!’, I flung aside my quilt to see who was pestering me in that blessed hour, when I was most inclined to repose a li’l longer in the cozy warmth of my bed.
The intruder was a crow, an ordinary looking crow, only that it had very shiny black feathers and round eyes that were inordinately big. From where it stood on the doormat, the bird pointed its beak at me and verbalised serenely, ‘Don’t you recognize me? I am Kaga Bhushundi, Beta, the immortal seer. Rise! It’s the auspicious Brahm Muhoort – the godly hour. You should be up and about….’
‘You may be anything, Mister Crow. But tell me how you entered my bedroom? The windows are shut and the door firmly bolted from inside,’ I said irritably.
‘As I told you, I am immortal and can come and go anywhere as I please….’
‘But why ruin my sleep? Couldn’t you have gone to my neighbour’s and cawed at him to your heart’s content?
‘I came here because you invoked me last night. Now don’t waste your prana unnecessarily which you have been allotted only so many. Ask me what bothers you.’
I had already lost the urge to go back to sleep. Sitting up on my bed, I carefully wrapped the quilt round myself and said, ‘Tell me what all you think about withdrawal of the currency notes that were issued before 2005.’
The Kaga did not seem as sure himself now as he had been a moment ago. “Reminds me how in the Treta Yuga….” he began.
‘Forget your Treta Yuga and its Rama Rajya, Kaga Ji. Come to the present times.’
‘Oh, then I must tell you about that Turkic ruler of Indrapastha who had to withdraw his tankas as their face value exceeded by far what they had actually stood for.’
‘No, Kaga Ji, I am not keen this time of the day to know about Mohammed Bin Tughlak who lived and died more than six and a half centuries ago. I want to know what has motivated the Reserve Bank of India to announce withdrawal of the paper money it had issued before the year 2005. Nearly 3700 crore currency notes valued at 3, 61,229 crore rupees will become worthless in months to come. They say these notes do not have enough security features. But why have they woken up after all these years? Is it the way government hopes to mop up black money in the country?’
Kaga Bhushundi SpeaketH
Suman. K. Sharma
The Kaga cackled as only crows can. ‘How simple you are, my son!’ he said. ‘Money is money, be it black or white. Those who have it know well how to change its colour. Wait and you will see.’
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