Spiralling Backward!

On a lazy sunday, I took up a task that I had been postponing before, for years. Cleaning my cup-board was not all that inviting to me, but I had to do it anyway. Some papers that I've kept for reasons that I could not remember now, went to the dust-bin first. Funny to note that I too would become old, unusable and hence stacked up one day.

My eyes rested on a small TV box with a slit on top. My thoughts spiralled backward at a frenzy pace. One of my uncles gifted it to me when I was 9 years or so and asked me to start saving money then. I still remember how much liked that idea and went from one person to another at home and asked some money to fill it up.

He had also started a small savings account in a bank in my name and showed me the pass-book to me. "If you save more, it will go into your account! When you grow up, you can buy whatever you want!". I still could recollect those words. My parents used to send me and one of my sisters to go and stay there a week or so, during summer holidays.

As you would expect, I was eagerly collecting the coins from others and put some of my own pocket money in it. It was a bit heavy soon and I started dreaming about the money that I will have one day. Three months later, when he paid a visit to my home, I took it to him and asked him to deposit the money. He accepted and later wrote a letter to congratulate me, saying it had Rs. 52-/- in it. That was a big money those days.

I was very proud and received the empty hundi again. But I was grown up a bit too, so I tried opening it, the other side. There was a brand new twenty rupee note in it.

Now he is no more, but the hundi is. Later I came to know that he paid Rs. 20-/- for every quarterly period to my account, though I never gave him back the filled hundi again.

 

Nice to know about a bit of your childhood memory Sunitha. Yes, the zeal with which we start collecting coins for the hundi, vanishes fast, like the ice-cube out of freezer. Thanks for your feedback with the relevant image. -rgs

 

Thanks for your nice feedback Sreema. Yes. We saved initially, but after that, its spend all the way [even today. only 1 credit entry per month (salary) - rest all are debits ] -rgs