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Demon Uncaged

Uday Mukerji

    I rushed out of the office as soon as I got off my afternoon shift at two. I had had no plan to make a trip to my village in the middle of a week, but a sudden phone call from my mother the previous night had rekindled an old dream again. And the hope of a better tomorrow kept me awake the whole night.
    With great difficulty, I managed to take a one-day leave on a pretense of my mother’s ‘illness’. I couldn’t tell my employer the truth yet. I didn’t know how they would react to the news; besides, nothing was confirmed. I didn’t want to burn any bridges.
    The journey from one corner of South Kolkata to my village could easily take six . . . seven hours, depending on the connections. After an hour’s travel by bus, I reached the central rail station. I was trying to catch the Bolpur Express at four-twenty-two, and if all went well, I would be reaching Bolpur in four and a half hours. My mother still lived in a village near Shantiniketan—a good half-an-hour walk from the railway station. But I had gotten quite used to the distance in the last few months as I was traveling back home every week on my days off.
    As the train left the station and people got settled in, the initial chaos and clamor also died down. I looked out the window. The train soon went past the extended middle-class suburbia of Kolkata, unveiling the pure and true landscape of India. But the paddy fields and green meadows had all vanished with the onset of the winter. Instead, the vast patches of empty lands and the small, thatched huts in distant villages had dotted the horizon. The days had become shorter too. I looked at my watch; it was close to five in the evening, and darkness was already spreading fast and thick. Half-naked children from afar were enthusiastically waving at the passing train passengers. Villagers were returning home after a hard day’s work in the field. I had seen this picture a hundred times, but it never ceased to amaze me. I loved that iconic image of India: happy and honest and no pretense.
    Are those days really gone? I remembered why I was making this trip. My mother had said last night, “I have managed to put together the money. Come home and give it to them.”
    I didn’t ask her ‘why’ because I knew the answer. This could be our ticket to a ‘middle class’ living. “But how?” I had blurted out. . . I couldn’t resist myself. I knew we had no money. All she had in terms of assets was the small village house, her piggy bank, and one or two pieces of old jewelry. I had always thought whatever little she had might come to good use after her retirement.
    However, my mother had refused to give me any direct answer. Instead, she had said, “I’ll tell you when you get here tomorrow. Please do as I say . . . times have changed.”
    But her phone call reminded me of a very confusing episode that had started about a year ago. Just as I had finished college, one day, my literature professor, Mr. Rodrigues, asked me over to his house and handed over an application form for a school teacher’s position in a government school.
    Although I was hesitant at first, thinking it would be a lengthy process, I finally succumbed to his and my mother’s will. I studied hard again, appeared for the exam, and had scored quite decent marks. But who knew that was only the easy part?
    Then, we waited and waited for the placement list. I didn’t hear a word from them for close to nine months since I had sat for the exam. One day, after she came back from work, I told my mother, “I can’t wait any longer and sit at home when you’re working all day. I want to help out, too.”
    My mother had been weaving in a handloom factory nearby. She had always been a wise woman and had raised me with her very small income, but she had never let me feel small. She had said, “I understand, son, but it’s not your fault. Give them a few more days. Anyway, we can still manage. Besides, money—more than you need—is baggage.”
    But my mother’s response had failed to take the load off my mind. In my desperate attempts to earn some money, I picked up a few private tuitions. However, the earning from private tuitions in a remote village wasn’t much. So, I started looking for a job—any job, although I didn’t tell my mother anything about that. How could I let my mother carry the load all by herself? She had already done enough. I wanted to do my part for the family. But another month had also gone in vain. Unable to find any job in and around our village, I finally told my mother, “I wanna move to the city and see if I can find anything there.”
    At first, she wasn’t happy, but eventually, I got her blessing. She said, “Maybe you should go. God knows what happened to that application. I don’t want to hold you back.”
    “You never held me back, Mom.”
    “Be careful, son.”
    Since then, I had moved to Kolkata and had been working as a security guard in a condominium for the last three months, visiting my mother once a week. Although that job was nothing compared to a respectable teacher’s position, it paid the bills. And I thought the door to my teaching profession had closed forever. But about a month ago, when I had gone back to my village on one of my days off, my mother said, “Some guys came from the party office looking for you. They said it was about the job you applied for.”
    “That’s funny. How would they know anything about the job application? Now, they’re selecting the candidates, too?”
    “I have no idea, son. Why don’t you go and check with them?”
    The next day, when I visited their office someone told me that in order to get the job I had already been selected for, I must pay two hundred and fifty thousand rupees (US$3,550) in cash to a designated person in Kolkata.
    Two hundred and fifty thousand rupees? How? We didn’t have that kind of money. Besides, why do I have to give them any money for a job that I have already been selected for? Isn’t that a bribe? How can I teach anything of value to my students if I start my own career on an unethical foundation? I had quietly walked out of the party office and decided not to mention anything to my mother. She’s better off not knowing.
    But a few days later, when I had mentioned the whole thing to Mr. Rodrigues, he didn’t seem so surprised. He said, “Unfortunately, that has become the latest practice for collecting money for many government jobs. That’s about the going rate for a school teacher’s position . . . I’m sorry, Samir . . . these days, you can’t get anything done without paying a bribe—from admitting your children to a good school to getting a patient treated in a government hospital.”
    However, the matter didn’t end there. The next week, again, as soon as I had reached home, my mother asked, “Why didn’t you tell me anything about the job offer?”
    “What job offer, Ma?” I asked.
    “The teacher’s job, silly? Those boys came back and told me everything. They said, with your salary, you could earn back the money in less than four months.”
    “That’s not the point, Mom, it’s a bribe.”
    “They said it’s needed for some developmental work in our village.”
    “What development, Ma? . . . They lied to you.”
    “I don’t know, son, but they have given us thirty days to consider the offer; otherwise, they’ll give the job to the next candidate.”
    “That’s all right, Mom. I’m already looking for something else.”
    “But that was a government job, son . . .” she murmured and had left the room.
    A sudden jerk in the train pulled me back to reality. The train stopped to a grinding halt. None of the passengers were prepared for the emergency brake. “What the hell?” screamed one lady from behind me.
    “Don’t worry, ma’am, there’s a signal before the crossing. Maybe the driver caught it at the last minute,” said one passenger.
    Two . . . three minutes later, the train started to move again, and I returned to my thoughts. Tomorrow would be that thirtieth day—our deadline to pay the kickback. Although I was very much against the idea, I had decided to go see my mother for two reasons. I wanted to make an all-out effort to dissuade her from accepting their offer, but most importantly, I wanted to know how she had put together such a huge sum within thirty days.
    Two hundred and fifty thousand rupees (US$3,550) was a big sum for us. I knew my mother used to save some money every month. It could be anything from ten rupees to one hundred rupees. But her regular monthly savings couldn’t possibly have swelled up to this amount. I was hoping she hadn’t borrowed it from someone, because we both hated that concept. Did she sell off her jewelry? I was getting impatient.
    Suddenly, my phone beeped. It was a Twitter alert from Ms. Soma Patil, an activist and a lecturer at Delhi University. I had been following her for the last two years. She tweeted, “Beware! Demon Uncaged. #Demonetization announced by the #PrimeMinister in a live telecast. #Rs.500 & #Rs.1000 bills will cease to be legal tenders after midnight tonight.”
    At first, I thought it was a joke—that she would follow up with another tweet explaining everything. But as I looked around, I realized the seriousness of the tweet. Almost everyone was on the phone, watching the news or giving instructions or getting them. It seemed the live telecast had already created a panic among the passengers. And, within the next twenty minutes, the chaos multiplied as the train slowly pulled into Bolpur station. There was a crowd everywhere—even in our remote, sleepy town. Everyone was asking questions, but there was no one to answer them. One ATM near the ticket counter already had a serpentine queue in front of it. “I’m sorry,” said one gentleman who pushed me aside and rushed toward that queue.
    “Just see where you’re going, man . . . the ATM isn’t going anywhere” I mumbled. Another man standing next to me explained, “They aren’t rushing to withdraw money; they’re here to deposit their old bills, which become obsolete in the next few hours.”
    I stood in the middle of the crowd, totally dazed. Not that I had any five-hundred or one-thousand-rupee bill on me, but I was also eager to know, what’s next?
    I suddenly noticed Mrs. Roy, my mother’s friend and her neighbor, trying to draw my attention from the middle of the same queue.
    “What are you doing here?” I shouted from a distance as I was trying to make my way to her.
    “I’ll explain later. Go home now.” Mrs. Roy sounded worried, but I was going back home, anyway.
    So, instead of wasting any more time there, I started walking. The distance between the station and my house was close to two kilometers. If I took a rickshaw, a local mode of transport, I could’ve possibly saved five to ten minutes. But I had never liked the idea of being carried by another man. On top of that, I wasn’t in that much hurry; I was staying the night at home, anyway.
    I took the shortest route via Purbapally and reached the village school within half an hour. But why there’re so many people in front of our house? What’s going on, and what’re they doing here at this hour?
    I couldn’t suppress my curiosity. I quickened my pace, and as I pushed the small wooden gate of the outer fence, Mrs. Banerji, an old neighbor of ours, threw herself on my shoulder and broke down. She mumbled something in my ear while sobbing, but I couldn’t figure out what she was saying. Mr. Banerji came running and pulled her away. He said, “We’re sorry, Samir, but we couldn’t save your mother. Her heart just collapsed; she couldn’t take the shock.”
    “What shock?” I blurted out.
    “The demonetization,” answered Mr. Banerji. “Haven’t you heard anything on the way? The money she put together over the month now becomes useless in two hours.”
    I sat down on the floor of our verandah in a rude shock. My heart was thumping inside my chest. Everyone in front of me looked blurry. I didn’t have any strength to get up. “Why, mother . . . why?” A lump inside my throat was choking me.
    I looked blankly at Mr. and Mrs. Banerji. They were my mother’s oldest and closest friends in our village. They knew everything about our struggle. As I gazed her way, Mrs. Banerji seemed to shrug off her momentary lapse, for she came to sit next to me. She held me tight and said, “Do you know what she was doing the whole month? She sold off her jewelry, and bit by bit, she changed all the smaller bills from the piggy bank into thousand-rupee bills. When we counted everything last night, we got a total of two hundred and ten thousand rupees, still short of forty thousand. This morning, your mother went to Harish Babu and took a loan for the rest, although I repeatedly told her yesterday not to borrow from him . . . he’s a loan shark.
    “But do you know what she said? ‘Don’t worry, Mila, my son can return it to him within a month. His one month’s salary will more than cover it with interest. Finally, our good days are here.’” And Mrs. Banerji broke down again.
    Then, Mr. Banerji slowly pulled me up by my hand and took me inside the house. My mother was still sitting on the couch in front of the TV in our small living room. Her head was slightly tilted to the left, eyes closed. It looked like she just dozed off.
    I felt dizzy. My head started spinning. I heard Mr. Banerji’s faint voice as if from a distance. “I came here to talk to your mother as soon as I heard the news. I knew she would be worried because she had no bank account, and she wouldn’t be able to deposit the old bills in any ATM.” He paused for a minute. “And then, I saw this. She must’ve watched the news on television, too. I turned it off and quickly called Dr. Deb, but he said she left us about an hour ago . . . damn demonetization!”

~        The End        ~

    Note: In a live telecast at 8:30 in the evening, on November 8th, 2016, the prime minister of India abruptly announced the demonetization of all its high-value currencies (Rs.500 and Rs.1000), making eighty-six percent of its currencies obsolete.
    The pain and suffering that followed due to this abrupt decision were reported in newspapers and televisions in the following days. Reportedly, many died of the shock; some committed suicide and others collapsed from standing in the long queues to exchange their old money or from other unmanageable circumstances for lack of cash in hand. More than fifty deaths within the first nine days had been directly linked to this government’s decision.
    (Source: https://www.huffingtonpost.in/2016/11/17/day-9-demonetisation-death-toll-rises-to-55_a_21608769/)

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