Let There Be No 500-1000

Warning – Poor Formatting, shabby work and probably a waste of your time. Thanks for clicking, though. 

It’s not every year that the government of our country does something so daring and bold which leaves the whole nation shocked (well most of us anyways).
This was quite the case at my home on Wednesday night, maybe a bit more relaxed than the ones who have hoards of unaccountable money. It took me a while to verify / believe this since I had hidden a stash of few thousand rupees kept for emergency consumption of intoxicating liquid.

Being lazy is never a good thing, because of this I only have the bank accounts that my dad made for me, which means that he knows about every transaction I make. Due to this I just keep cash to avoid my dad’s inquisitive questions. Thanks to the brilliant initiative by PM Modi, I had to give all the money I hoarded up to my dad to exchange /deposit it in the bank.

But how has this affected me and people I have come around?

8th November

In the evening/night, the PM announced the move by the government to consider all the 1000/500 Rs notes as invalid from the midnight. This seemed like a hoax to me at the beginning but then the phone calls started flooding in for my dad. Panic stricken people who were in disbelief, others asking what to do. Petrol bunks were crowded, middle class and some armchair activists in Twitter were rejoicing.

9th November

I had a bunch of 100 Rs denominations so decided to carry on with my plans as usual which turned out to be a good way to observe how it affected the surroundings. No, I didn’t walk around the neighbourhood surveying or trying to understand how the lives of people have been affected; I instead went to see Doctor Strange. First victims of this I saw with my own eyes were a bunch of school children who had come for a movie but couldn’t since they had money only in the invalid denominations.

Most of us had carried our cards due to this issue, but it was funny when the security guards of a place told us that they only accept payment via debit/credit cards before we could enter the place. There was a bit of confusion when it came to settling the bill but it was all fine. Everything seemed so fine.

10th November

I had to go to the Airport, during my little quest to ensure my relatives reached our home; I noticed a few small incidents. First of all and the most important lesson I learnt that day was that one shouldn’t trust BMTC. I assumed their timings posted for the airport shuttle bus would be accurate but that was not the case. I realised that some bus conductors were accepting 500 Rs notes, it was the same over at Bangalore Metro counters. The acceptance was just up to the discretion of the person at the counters. Supermarkets near my place were also accepting the no longer valid note provided one buys for the whole amount.

11th November

Banks are hell at this point. Desperate people everywhere. ATMS are also pointless. A friend of mine was struggling to get money for food. ATMS and banks were not an option unless one has hours to spare. Internet being filled with armchair ones who apparently have no requirement for cash and ignorant of the plight of the less privileged were at large.

Commissions being offered, agents running between banks to convert and get anything possible as cash. Chaos.

Fast Forward.

10th December

It is December, exactly a month. I can still see people standing outside for money in ATMs. The whole nation is still talking about the move by the government to curb black money, but as days pass by the number of supporters seems to be declining. Citizens have started to realise that it was a poorly implemented move which is doing more harm than good for anyone.

And now there seems to be plenty of news articles like these:-

Police seize new currency notes worth crores across several cities

Inside A Honda In Surat, 76 Lakhs In New 2,000-Rupee Notes

There are plenty more similar incidents being reported. But what this means is that it’s mostly just the common man who is at the suffering side and the ones who were supposed to be suffering might have found solutions and relaxing and laughing at the whole scenario.

Digital India is a joke, our country has no proper rule set when it comes to the cyberspace.  It’s easy for the urban people to preach about using digital wallets and embrace internet banking but the fact is the majority of the population is a bit backwards when it comes to technology.

Yesterday there was a revelation about paid tweets which was done to support this move by the government.

 

I had started writing this stupid in the second week of November, but I just lost interest and couldn’t just go through with it. Demonetisation was a good attempt but the amount of pain a person has to go through for this outweighs it, especially considering there have been quite a few deaths thanks to waiting in queues ( which apparently is still worth it because- black money)

So I shall just stop before I overstep and be considered  a ‘deshdrohi’ just for presenting my views and experiences. Speaking of which, it seems that Chartered Accountants are instructed  advised not to share any negative views on any platform.

 

All the best to PayTM; also don’t forget to stand up and sing the national anthem in the movie theatres from now on 🙂

I didn’t go through this article, so if there are any errors or feedback – Please let me know.