The recent news of Dacca (Bangladesh) beggars refusing alms below five ‘taka’ brought back memories of the good old days when a ‘taka’ could buy almost anything a child wanted. My nostalgic reference is to our indigenous ‘taka’ - half of an ‘anna’ (1/32 of a rupee), a beautiful small square coin that little kids from middle class families of Delhi were thrilled to get as spending money (till the late 1940s). When I tried to explain this to my five-year-old grand daughter, who of course needs minimum ten rupees for an ice-lolly, she laughed. She thought I was joking, because she could not conceive that such a minuscule amount could have ever bought anything! I can’t blame the kid, because it does all sound like a dream. When my father started business, around 1920, a ‘taka’ could buy close to two ‘seers’ of wheat, enough for a family of five to have two square meals; a ‘taka’ could also get them over 35 grams of ‘desi ghee’ - more than one could eat in two days (despite there being low awareness of its high cholesterol content). So, a ‘taka’ was enough to take care of a full meal for a whole family. Today we are buying watermelon at Rs 8 per kilo, storing it in the fridge and serving one quarter at a time, nicely sliced and de-seeded. Bach then, whenever our cook served watermelon for breakfast, papa would have a hearty laugh and tell us that when he was young, the biggest, sweetest watermelon could be bought – yes, you are right - for a ‘taka’! People often brought a sackful, cooled them in a tub of water, and then everyone sat down to eat. If a watermelon was perfectly red and sweet, two people would share it; if not, it was kept for feeding to the cows. Coke and Pepsi are big news in India today. They also cost big money - about Rs 10 everytime you feel thirsty; and it is now difficult to trust the water from the refrigerated trolleys. In the early fifties, when Coca Cola was first launched in Delhi, a bottle cost 4 ‘annas’ (25 paise) in the market. But, as school kids we often got coupons, which would get us the imported luxury for one ‘anna’. Those were the days when a young subaltern in the army started at a princely salary of 480 rupees per month, though that was enough to permit a very comfortable lifestyle. In fact I am told that in the late thirties an army Captain (they were mostly British) could afford a retinue of servants, a stable of horses and other attributes of a royal lifestyle - all on a monthly salary of 600 rupees. So, probably a ‘taka’ tipped to his khansama brought forth many salaams. I remember the time when my grandfather handed me the task of arranging for the daily milk for the family. This was before the advent of DMS and Mother Dairy. The milk was to be procured from a person in the neighbourhood, who used to keep cows and buffaloes; and unless you were present and alert, the rubber tube around his wife’s waist (while milking the animal) would quickly release some water into the milk. Such an onerous task (of fetching milk) had to be done either by grandpas or kids - the latter of course for a small fee. And yes, you have guessed it again! I was paid a ‘taka’ every evening, as compensation for my having to miss my street soccer match…and for keeping an eye on the milkman’s wife. The taka was not too weak internationally too. The first time I went to Japan, a dollar could be bought with only eight rupees, and a rupee could buy more than 300 of the magic yen currency; so even our ‘taka’ was almost 10 times more valuable than a yen! While our ‘taka’ has been discontinued, the Bangladeshi ‘taka’ (more like our rupee) thrives – and so even today there is a ‘taka’ that is more valuable than the yen. Yet, such is the (lack of) value of money today that Bangladeshi beggars can afford to scoff at not one, but five, ‘takas’.
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