Tailormade Demonetisations

 

Image courtesy The Culture Trip

It was after a pretty long while that Maggie and I decided to add a pair or two of new clothes to our wardrobe yesterday. Ever since the epic demonetisation in 2016, life was as rugged as a rapper’s ravings. The floods and landslides in our neighbourhood followed demonetisation again and again which were doggedly followed by the various waves of a pandemic. When Maggie and I became irrevocably convinced that life was never going to regain its lost rhyme and rhythm, we decided to step out and get on with life. With some new clothes. “Let rhyme and rhythm stay confined in Thomas Gray’s Elegy,” I muttered to myself as I revved up our demure Alto.

We chose a rather recently opened and apparently high-end conglomerate in order to avoid crowds. But, contrary to all our calculations, the parking space of the textile complex was all full and the security staff managing it was not particularly pleased with the modesty of our little vehicle. “The pandemic has not affected the economy as much as the media make it out,” I said to Maggie. The teeming crowd inside the building proved me righter than ever.

Maggie managed to finalise her choices after a couple of hours or so. I usually don’t need more than five minutes to choose a pair of trousers and shirt for me. Not this time though. There wasn’t a single shirt or trousers made for me on those countless shelves. They were all like “slim fit” or “narrow fit” or “printed” or something else that I thought would make me look like a clown. “Didn’t I shed the clown’s motley after I left Shillong?” I asked Maggie who was surprised by my uncharacteristic fastidiousness in a clothes shop.

Finally, having picked a piece of Raymond’s suit material for a pair of pants and another decent piece for a shirt, I decided to end the ordeal called shopping. Then the card-readers at the bill counter went on strike. “Server problem, sir,” the woman at the counter said. “We can’t accept cards – neither debit nor credit.”

“Demonetisation’s objectives are yet to be achieved,” I grumbled not too softly.

“Google Pay is working, though,” the woman reassured us. Yes, Google Pay should work, I thought. I paid for tomatoes with Google Pay yesterday. Even the barber in my village accepts Google Pay. That was one of the few benefits of demonetisation: transactions went digital in the chicken coop.

My friend Akbar has a different sort of problem with demonetisation, however. 8 Nov 2016 was his son’s seventh birthday which he was going to celebrate with the boy’s ritual circumcision. When Modi ji announced at 8 pm on the previous day like a pompous emperor that most currency notes of the country would turn into “worthless paper” from midnight, Akbar was relieved that he had already arranged everything for the ritual and the mutton biriyani to follow. Never had he thought, however, that the word ‘demonetisation’ would acquire the meaning it did in his household and neighbourhood.

“The demonetisation of Akbar’s son was a grand function,” someone said.

“I never tasted a meatier biriyani than on the day when Salim was demonetised,” said another some four years after Akbar’s son was circumcised.

“When you were peeing I could see the tip of your demonetisation,” a boy told another in the village school’s urinal.

I stood like a demonetised boy beside the tailor near my school whom I knew personally. “Too many uniforms to be completed, sir,” he said pointing at the heap of clothes lying in his stitching room. My own school’s uniforms. “But how I can go to another tailor?” I protested. “You are the best one around.” He was pleased. “Ok, but it will take time,” he said with genuine helplessness. “How long?” I ask. “Next year,” he says.

I remember all the soldiers who fight for us on the Siachen glaciers. “What is your hardship in comparison?” I remember our PM’s question when people died in the queues before ATM counters after demonetisation. I accept my tailor’s mandate. It is my duty as a teacher toward my school. It is my duty as a citizen toward my country. Wait.