Cash Chaos

If you haven’t heard (it might have been easy to miss with all the chaos erupting around the world), India is also experiencing its own disruptive case of events. On November 8, India’s President made a bold move by nixing all 500 and 1000 rupee notes as legal tender; forcing people to exchange these notes at banks for currency that is still legal. Of course, there are limits on how much you can exchange per day and per week. To give you an idea, this would be the equivalent of the Canadian or US government announcing that all $10 and $20 notes are void. Overnight. In India however, a massive portion of the population relies on cash for their transactions rather than card. I keep imagining all the people that stockpile money under their mattresses, in books and other hiding spots. With the limits set per day on how much money you can exchange and a deadline of exchanging all [500 and 1000 rupee] notes by December 30th, imagine how many people's years worth of savings have just gone down the drain! 

Needles to say, the past week or so has been frustrating for everyone. As travellers in India, we also face the unknown while we try to continue life here “normally”. Thankfully, there hasn’t been any major civil unrest or rioting.

This morning we started our own day with waiting in line to exchange the few 1000 and 500 rupee notes we have left. As you might imagine, India having as many people as it does, line-ups are INSANE. We witnessed line-ups in Varanasi on our weekend getaway where men and women had separate queues. Some women were even pretending to be pregnant to be able to jump ahead because of how long the waits are. Now, back in Kolkata, there are only single line-ups (we should have taken advantage of the gender segregation and lined up in Varanasi!) and people are cutting the line, letting their friends in and out in front of them, and yelling random things trying to confuse each other.

We got to the bank around 10am and stood in what was already a very long line-up. We had our forms ready and passports photocopied ahead of time. We stood in line for about an hour when a member of the bank’s staff hushed us out of the line and escorted us straight to the manager’s office. There, we were treated with AC and comfortable chairs. Our money was exchanged within minutes. It was really weird to get special treatment. With my Indian heritage, I don’t always experience foreigner’s privilege in the same way non-coloured tourists do, so this was a really odd occurrence and I can’t express the discomfort it brought on. I don’t think I would have been noticed in line if it weren’t for Katie. And I can’t decide if I’m grateful for this special treatment or feel as though it’s unfair to all the other people who are feeling just as stranded and nervous about money as we are. I should feel more grateful that we were helped out so kindly, especially considering how much Indian's highly value the presence of guests. But I guess with everything that’s going on currently around the globe, I can't help but ponder on the the difference that skin colour, birthplace, language and/or class perceptions make in these situations.

Although today we feel as though we accomplished something by exchanging the remainder of our unusable rupees, we have very little remaining cash and ATM’s are not adequately stocked. Line-ups remain crazy. It looks like we’ll be using our credit cards mainly, hopefully most places will accept them – though since they are international credit cards we have already had some issues.

Then, halfway through this blogpost we were told that some of the coin denominations we were given at the bank, although legal tender, are not actually commonly accepted. When we showed our co-workers our 2000 rupees worth of 10 rupee coins, gobsmacked, their eyes widened with concern for us. Confused and flustered, we earnestly headed back to the bank to talk to the same manager. Feeling uncomfortable but determined, we bypassed those in line, and made a beeline for his office. We explained that we had tried to use the coins but barely anyone is taking them. His response was impartial and he advised us to keep using them, acting as if he had no idea people are weary of accepting them.

Although we’ve been here for 2.5 months and we’ve barely seen 10 rupee coins, it didn’t occur to us that people don’t like using them, we just thought they were rare. And we thought the bank manager was being so kind by giving us small denominations because they’re so useful for street shopping and local transport. But looks like we might have been taken advantage of. We really didn’t see that coming. However, we came to the conclusion that at most we each lose out on around $20 so it’s definitely not the end of the world.

What a day.

The adventure continues.

(Update: we returned to the bank, to the same manager's office with our full bags of 10 rupee coins and explained that no one was accepting them. The manager kept explaining that the coins are legal tender and asked us why no one would take them. We continued to explain that we didn't understand why no one was taking them and that, regardless of whether the coins were legitimate or not, we wanted to exchange them. It was with great reluctance that he finally exchanged them for us and we walked away from the bank, for the fourth time that week, finally satisfied. We hope we won't be back there...ever.)