Chhutta Money

Its kind of difficult to understand sometimes that “chhutta” is never available easily. I believe most of us might have come through this “chhutta nahi hai kya?” question numerous times in our daily life. For me it has become an integral part of my life. This chhutta question has put me in to a lot of thinking lately. From a barber shop to a local kirana shop, a paan tapri or an auto-wallahs, chhutta is always scarce to find. I sometimes wonder where have all these chutta’s gone.

I postulated some theories myself which I completely shrugged off at the end because its lame. How can I even think that most of these chhuttas must have been siphoned off to Swiss Bank apparently by some nation loving politicians. Politicians are the only people I can always blame for every cause. Politicians are my Punching Bag. Whether it is corruption or a Bomb Blast, I tend to feel that politicians are the culprit. It has raised a strong protest inside me and sometimes I doubt the mere existence of democracy and feel we need a Karl Marx to fix all this. Pheww.. from Chhuttas to Karl Marx.. Long Story.

For once when I assume “well.. my theory is true”, then I blame and condemn these politicians. I feel directly affected with their actions. I feel betrayed and cheated. The chhuttas that I always needed in my daily life has been siphoned off to Swiss Bank. What the heck? For a simple Indian like me, this thought of the politicians stealing the public money, whether it is chhutta or khoka was difficult to accept.

Once I had landed myself into a big trouble because of “unavailable chhuttas”. I had a punctured tyre on some remote highway. I took an auto in search for a mechanic and when I finally found a mechanic, the fare I was supposed to pay was 54 bucks. I reach out my pocket and I was really unfortunate to learn that I had only a single note of Rs 1000 in my wallet. When I took the note and tried to hand it over to the auto-wallah, promptly came the reply “chhutta de na boss”. Since I didn’t have this important thing that the auto-wallah wants, I look at the mechanic, raise my eyebrows(this is how mainland Indian communicates sometimes) and I understand the look in the face of the mechanic guy who nodded his head apparently trying to say “Dude, I am sorry, no chhutas here, find somewhere else..!!”.

I feel helpless, I had to ride with the auto-wallah for another 3 Kms before I reach a paan-tapri in search for chhutta, I had to buy a packet of cigarette and a matchbox to finally get what I want. I had to suffer some sort of financial loss due to unavailable chhuttas once again. The auto was the only way to go back to the mechanic for which I was charged an extra amount for the good extra distance that I travelled in search of chhutta.

That day, when I reach home, I had this question in mind… Is this chhutta problem only in mainland India? It brings me back to my childhood days in Mizoram where this chhutta concept was rather different. Going down the memory lane I realize that there was a time in Mizoram where the local shop-owners generally round off the MRP of commodities to its nearest currency denomination. For instance, if a Bourbon biscuit cost Rs 8, the shopkeeper would sell it for Rs 10. Also if a single local call from a PCO cost Rs 3.50, I’l have to shell out Rs 5. The chhutta problem still holds true even in Mizoram but its considerably less than Mainland India.

The “chhutta” question comes to me in different language. Even though it means the same, I have been asked “chhutta-money” in different ways in different times. Some of which I remember is “Pawisa Nawi(Mizoram)’, “Kusura Paisa (Assam), “Bhangti Paisa (Kolkata)”, “Khujura (Nepali)”, “Chhutta/Sutte (Maharashtra)”.

I remember how my Grandfather used to give me advice to have a lot of “Khujura-Money” in my wallet every time I had to travel to Mainland India. I never took this advice seriously though, probably because I know that “chhutta-problem” is going to remain, whether it is North-East India or Mainland India. Now being in Pune, I have decided to prepare a generic answer for every chhutta-question from now on. The next time any one ask for chhutta, I am just going to reply with “Sutte nahi ahe, bhau?”