BANDI

 BANDI

 

LT COL NOEL ELLIS

16/II/2024

 

There was a time when we went through ‘Note Bandi’. Inconvenience besides, they were tough times. The nation sailed through. The second time, we didn’t even realise it.

Then came ‘Vote Bandi’, for a party which is walking up and down the country. The nation existed then, exists today and shall continue to exist. Maybe, many shades better and keep improving.

Recently we witnessed a kind of ‘Coat Bandi’. There were changes in the Naval Mess dresses. Change, they say, is inevitable and is being incorporated in the forces. Let us welcome it.

In between there was ‘Langot Bandi’, pun intended. Our ‘Langot Dhari’ ever winking Baba, who twisted his body and churned his stomach to make Yoga so popular, now sells health care products. Suddenly, he is no more in the limelight. His langot has been fastened too tight it seems.

‘Cash Bandi’ is already in vogue. I don’t like to carry my wallet anymore as you can pay with the mobile for a pin to a plane. This has also led to Debit and Credit card Bandi, cheque book Bandi, thanks to the UPI payment portals, which even a road side vendor keeps.

I have to carry my wallet which now mostly has my car documents. Our traffic police stop my car at every check post. Their habit of palm greasing needs total ‘Ghoos Bandi’ which I ensure.

What I want to discuss today is ‘Khot Bandi’. Khot of every kind. From corruption, to purity of products. Might as well include purity in thoughts and action.

The story starts this morning when our vegetable vendor was doing his ‘hisaab-kitaab’ for the vegetables we had purchased from him. For a change, wife had the requisite change.

She handed over a Rs 10 coin to him along with the rest of the cash. He requested her to change the coin. “Khoto hai’, he said. This was quite unheard of. I had come across a ‘Khota Sikka’ of Rs 10 denomination for the first time.

I requested him to tell me which is ‘asli’ and which one is ‘naqli’. What we had handed over to him was a coin with 10 embossed prominently in the centre. The one which was genuine had 10 grooves around the figure of 10 and the fake coin had 15 grooves embossed with 10 at the bottom. I can still not figure out which one is fake.

It was quite surprising that people have started ‘minting’ coins also. Pakis were printing our notes which was stopped by note bandi. Hope this new disease doesn’t spread.

I took a photo of both the coins and also will check if we have more such Rs 10 coins. There won’t be many, as the concept of piggy banks has vanished too.

Frankly, the one which the vegetable vendor accepted as authentic looked counterfeit to us. They deal with coins on a daily basis so would know better. We hardly use cash, leave alone coins. Hope both of the coins are legal currency.

A fake Rs 10 coin was like ‘Hosh Bandi’ for us. Have you guys come across such coins? I wonder!!!!!!

 

JAI HIND

© ® NOEL ELLIS