Despite the howling winds and incessant rain, July is a happy month for me me because it is the birthday month of two of my favourite people – Anna Shetty and her son Little Po.

Anna Shetty was actually born on Ashadhi ekadashi according to the Hindu calendar, a day when it normally pours so I can’t understand why she chose to have Little Po the day after her own birthday when it still pours equally hard. But then, it’s all done and over with so there’s no point speculating about her logic.

Little Po is the youngest of my grandchildren and even though he’s born just five weeks after Ms Papaya, I still feel he is the babiest of them all. Yet, I thought he should be given a choice of birthday present as today’s kids are wise beyond their years .At least they know their minds better at their age than I do mine at my age . For instance, I still dither between this and that when I have to order a simple meal for myself in a restaurant and choosing a present will completely short circuit me. But the Little People are well aware of what they want.

So when I asked Little Po what he wanted for his birthday he promptly replied ‘money’.

A nephew of mine had once told me that money as a gift is an easy way out when the gift giver doesn’t want to take the trouble of finding something the recipient would really like.

I have always been wary of gifting money since and was a bit taken aback by this choice.

Gift of money

I wasn’t exactly sure how much money to give a little boy, so I asked him if he wanted a rupee for each year. He scoffed in disbelief and said that Rs. 7 wouldn’t even buy him ONE Fusen Gum (the reason why he frittered away his personal savings accumulated over the years) . He didn’t even think Rs. 500 was decent enough as he now had a target of re-building his savings that he had needlessly squandered on sweets and chocolates over the past two months.

Not really keen on giving him money to buy more sweets, I thought a Rs. 2000 note would be grand even though it was a bit too much for a little boy. My logic was that he would find it harder to fritter away a larger denomination and it would tide him over for at least a year. Besides, Little Po is a budding numismatist and if the note were to be devalued, it would be a valuable addition to his growing coin collection.

Money laundering

I don’t normally keep notes of such large denominations and found only one note in my cupboard which was my Rainy Day Fixed Deposit. But it looked a bit scruffy so I asked Hubby Dear to exchange it for a clean note from the bank .

Naturally, this task was outsourced and the peon who went to the bank returned with FOUR notes of Rs. 500 ! I was livid when I saw the new 500’s – they were exactly what I didn’t want.

The next day I took the notes to my Bank and was told that this note wasn’t being minted any more. That was really bad news as Little Po was quite excited about getting a Rs 2000 note for his birthday.

Something had to be done so I asked the driver if he could exchange the 4 notes for 1 from the neighbourhood shops.

After trudging around, he came back with a shabby looking note that looked worse than the one I had originally wanted exchanged.

Sensing my disappointment, he reassured me saying, “Don’t worry madam. This can look as good as new . Just wash away the stains with some soap and iron out the creases !”

I was stumped with this suggestion and couldn’t help wondering if he had a side hustle as a money launderer!

Ciao

P. S. Lest you think otherwise, our driver is as straight as a stick and would be horrified if he knew that such a thought came to my mind