Indian news channels constantly report on the various problems the country faces. These include inflation, corruption, crime, discrimination, economic stagnation et cetera. Unfortunately, despite the hyperbolic tendencies of the NDTVs and CNN-IBNs of this world, most of this is factual. However, ask an average Indian what the most irritating things about daily life are and the list would be as follows. Mangoes are too expensive, roadwork takes too long and nobody has any change. Any effort to find change is either utterly futile or not worth the effort.
Ask an auto driver for change and you will be turned away faster than a pre-pubescent child at a nightclub. Ask for five rupees in a general store and prepare to be greeted by a cacophonic silence. Your supermarket bill ends in a non-zero digit? Prepare to be burdened with several toffees you will probably never have heard of, let alone eaten. Need to open the battery compartment of your Rs.50000 MacBook? You can’t, because you have no coin change and neither do any of your colleagues or relatives. Consequentially you will be forced to use the end of a spoon to perform a function it was never designed to carry out. And this is the big issue. Why does no one in India have any change? If what the news channels say is true and a terrible bout of inflation is in the air, then logically people should be burdened with kilogrammes of unused and useless coins. These should form mountain ranges to rival the Himalayas. Yet this is evidently not the case, seeing as coins are as common in India as the Statue of Liberty.
Short-changing (as it shall now be referred to) is causing severe complications in the Indian economy. There are those that have benefitted – this faction consists mainly of the companies that manufacture confectionery found at supermarket billing terminals. The evidence is overwhelming. Products like Parle Gol Gappa, Alpenlibe toffees, Cadbury Éclairs, Lotte Coffee Bite and so forth have become so successful that even Mentos and Halls can now be procured in Re.1 packs. Sales of chewing gum to disgruntled grocery shoppers far outweigh sales to eight year-old boys. Other benefactors of short-changing include men’s pockets – no more bulges caused by an excess of Re.1 coins – and security personnel, who can finally refrain from asking people to empty their pockets of change before frisking them.
One of the big losers due to short changing is the parking industry. Fed up with not having change to pay the attendant, people have come up with new and innovative ways to avoid parking their cars. An example of this is at Bangalore airport, where drivers wait outside the entrance until they are summoned, whether they drive Tata Indicas or Audi Q7s. This has resulted in a rather perplexing conundrum for those that visit the airport. Parking is easily available, but why park when you can only cough up a Rs.500 note for a Rs.30 parking bill? Why not instead just wait outside and have a coffee at the drink stall set up by an opportunistic entrepreneur, where you will struggle to pay the outrageously complicated sum of Rs.27 and end up with some éclairs?
The biggest loser, though, is the Indian consumer. Not having coin change has had serious implications on bank accounts. Consider an average middle class citizen about to purchase a small car on a seven-year loan. On a loan of Rs. 5 lakh, his monthly instalment would be around Rs.8739. However, short-changing has resulted in this being rounded off to the more convenient figure of Rs.8750. In the context of a car, Rs.11 does not seem like much, but over seven years, that’s a difference of Rs.924. That’s 924 Cadbury éclairs, or several cases of tooth decay. The same scenario applies to all purchases, including home loans, which can be up to fifteen years in length. This equates to a sizeable hole in one’s account statements, or a very bad case of diabetes mellitus.
In conclusion then, Indian media are liars. Phoney. Bogus. Fraudulent. Their claims about inflation are baseless. Sure, petrol is more expensive, food is more expensive and Cadbury éclairs are more expensive. But when the best tasting coffee is not Rs.75 in Café Coffee Day, but Rs.5 in a railway station, why complain? Perhaps they should write about more pertinent issues. Like how no one has any coins anymore.
-Chap
Ask an auto driver for change and you will be turned away faster than a pre-pubescent child at a nightclub. Ask for five rupees in a general store and prepare to be greeted by a cacophonic silence. Your supermarket bill ends in a non-zero digit? Prepare to be burdened with several toffees you will probably never have heard of, let alone eaten. Need to open the battery compartment of your Rs.50000 MacBook? You can’t, because you have no coin change and neither do any of your colleagues or relatives. Consequentially you will be forced to use the end of a spoon to perform a function it was never designed to carry out. And this is the big issue. Why does no one in India have any change? If what the news channels say is true and a terrible bout of inflation is in the air, then logically people should be burdened with kilogrammes of unused and useless coins. These should form mountain ranges to rival the Himalayas. Yet this is evidently not the case, seeing as coins are as common in India as the Statue of Liberty.
Short-changing (as it shall now be referred to) is causing severe complications in the Indian economy. There are those that have benefitted – this faction consists mainly of the companies that manufacture confectionery found at supermarket billing terminals. The evidence is overwhelming. Products like Parle Gol Gappa, Alpenlibe toffees, Cadbury Éclairs, Lotte Coffee Bite and so forth have become so successful that even Mentos and Halls can now be procured in Re.1 packs. Sales of chewing gum to disgruntled grocery shoppers far outweigh sales to eight year-old boys. Other benefactors of short-changing include men’s pockets – no more bulges caused by an excess of Re.1 coins – and security personnel, who can finally refrain from asking people to empty their pockets of change before frisking them.
One of the big losers due to short changing is the parking industry. Fed up with not having change to pay the attendant, people have come up with new and innovative ways to avoid parking their cars. An example of this is at Bangalore airport, where drivers wait outside the entrance until they are summoned, whether they drive Tata Indicas or Audi Q7s. This has resulted in a rather perplexing conundrum for those that visit the airport. Parking is easily available, but why park when you can only cough up a Rs.500 note for a Rs.30 parking bill? Why not instead just wait outside and have a coffee at the drink stall set up by an opportunistic entrepreneur, where you will struggle to pay the outrageously complicated sum of Rs.27 and end up with some éclairs?
The biggest loser, though, is the Indian consumer. Not having coin change has had serious implications on bank accounts. Consider an average middle class citizen about to purchase a small car on a seven-year loan. On a loan of Rs. 5 lakh, his monthly instalment would be around Rs.8739. However, short-changing has resulted in this being rounded off to the more convenient figure of Rs.8750. In the context of a car, Rs.11 does not seem like much, but over seven years, that’s a difference of Rs.924. That’s 924 Cadbury éclairs, or several cases of tooth decay. The same scenario applies to all purchases, including home loans, which can be up to fifteen years in length. This equates to a sizeable hole in one’s account statements, or a very bad case of diabetes mellitus.
In conclusion then, Indian media are liars. Phoney. Bogus. Fraudulent. Their claims about inflation are baseless. Sure, petrol is more expensive, food is more expensive and Cadbury éclairs are more expensive. But when the best tasting coffee is not Rs.75 in Café Coffee Day, but Rs.5 in a railway station, why complain? Perhaps they should write about more pertinent issues. Like how no one has any coins anymore.
-Chap
GUD JOB!!!!
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