Minted Into The Memory

By Bhavya Kumari

The sun shines on my eyes and I wrinkle them to shield myself from the golden heat. I look to the left and then to the right, then up front, and cross the road to reach the exhibition of “Coins and Currencies.”

My interest in coins could be misunderstood as being obsessive about money but I had an emotional connection with coin collecting. My grandfather said every coin, money, and currency has its story. It always moves in a cycle. I loved to think that maybe I have touched the same money as my favorite celebrity.

Did you notice the past tense in the above sentence? If you did not then I shall get it to your notice.

My grandfather had been missing for the last 3 years and he took his coin collection missing with him. The police have given up and somewhere I have too. But there is still a tinkle of hope that I might crossroads with him here, after all, we shared an interest in coin collecting.

I walked straight into the golden building. One might think the hotel was a prestigious one however it was good at putting up a fake facade. A little new paint and some bright curtains do the job of making it anew.

Not much crowd gathered for such petty activities. Who would want their children to see a bunch of metal circles put on a show? No one apparently because I barely saw any children there. There were either aged looking back to their childhood currency or black suitcases wanting to sell the old currency as antiques.

Nothing caught my eye as I walked through the stalls.

“My grandfather showed this to me. He had this. I have this already.” I counted the known in my mind as I walked through the coppers and silvers.

Stalls and boards crossed and I only saw the repeated collection of currency before independence, near independence, and close after independence. Nothing new, nothing more.

I strolled in a bore and continued twice or thrice through the stalls. Instead of looking for the coins, now I looked for people.

I walked around, looking at the exhibitionists’ faces, thinking about their part of the story which brought them here today. Was that person also told tales of the currency cycle? Did their grandfathers also go missing?

I walked and looked at faces, and brewed stories; about the exhibitionists, the patrons, and about the buyers.

My eyes stopped for a second at an unreadable face. I somehow couldn’t find a story to cook for him. Was it the lack of expression and interest he showed? Or was it that no patron stood on his stand?

Curiosity took the better of me and my feet took me to the stand before I could rethink. I think I was staring too hard at his face because he made a twisted expression at me. I diverted my eyes to the coins that he had. An inexperienced eye would think these are just normal coins, but not being one of that, I saw how unique these were.

They shined as if they were new, but they were actually old enough to belong to my grandfather’s, grandfather’s father-in-law. That goes 4 generations back if my calculation’s not wrong.

I looked curiously at them. They weren’t adorned in glass boxes with cotton and silk sheets to make them look attractive, they were charming as they were, laying flat with only a simple wooden plaque beneath them.

My hands twitched as I heard a curt cough from the man behind the stalls. My hands involuntarily went to touch the coins. I looked up apologetically at the man.

“You can take them in your hands but please don’t drop them or steal them.”

Despite the man’s almost old age, he had a young and bright voice, but his voice gave nothing to me to build a character story for him.

I bowed in thanks and picked one of the coins.

I could feel the cold hard copper on my skin. It was untouched as I could tell. The luster was still there as if minted recently.

I looked at the man as a remark left my mouth.

“These are great replicas. Where do you get them made?”

The coin was an old British era one with a man young prince minted sharp and shiny on it.

The man looked calm as he answered un-offended.

“These are actually real. They were well kept and taken care of by my forefathers.”

I nodded to myself in acceptance, agreeing to the heritable logic: “But coppers oxidizes, why has this not?”

The man rose an eyebrow at me, impressed by the question.

“It was well kept, as I explained”

He refused to reveal his secrets. Maybe he was one of the people who cleaned coins from acids and stuff; I saw they did that in a video.

I kept the coin back in its position as I looked further around his stall.

A dark brownish-red set kept in a corner caught my eye. They had underdeveloped circular stubs of what looked like mud. I picked one of them up but they were as hard as the copper one I had picked up.

I looked further into the details of the coin. It had very intricate detail. I could only form out what looked like a lion or an animal with a mane and a tail similar to a lion. It was engraved into the material of the coin. It looked like something taken out of a mythological book.

My observation was interrupted by the man speaking again.

“That one is from ancient Nepal. 2.78 grams and 13.87 in diameter. If you turn it around it has an old language engraved on it which I guess tells the value of the coin.”

So, Nepal was its home. I wonder how it came here.

“This set, from which you have picked the coin up, is one of the oldest coin collections I own. Another coin-” He picked up one from the set “- which is my favorite, is one to look at. This one is from Mysore. Aged probably near the 18th century.”

He had a shiny, golden engraved coin in his hand. He seemed proud to share this one like a proud father telling about his son becoming an IAS.

I looked at the coin and tried to understand the engraved shapes. I could see an OM figure and maybe a woman…. And a man. OH! This was Shiva and Parvati! I could now see the little feet that rested at the bottom of the coin’s engraving.

I was impressed by it… extremely.

I finally decided to ask a burning question.

“Sir, who are you?”

The man’s face aged to 10 years and he frowned at me with a discerning look. I could see the story in his face now. Maybe he was a rejected businessman or an auctioneer who failed to sell these coins in his big show.

Maybe he was a 56-year-old gentleman who was bullied by his other old gentlemen for having a childish hobby like coin collecting.

I asked him again, “Sir, who are you?”

He stared daggers into my face and said in a grave voice. “I will not answer that. This is business here young lady, not a personal exhibition.”

His words were polite but his tone was stone-cold. I took a deep determined breath and said “If I bought your favorite set from you, will you answer my question?”

“The question will cost extra money”

“Fine! I’ll pay extra money.”

The man’s expression changed to a curious one. He was yet again impressed.

He did a curt nod and started to pack his favorite set into a pristine glass box with a purple satin sheet. He put the box on the table in front of me and said “That will be 2,000 including your question charges.”

The question was expensive. Maybe, he was a thief who had stolen these ancient and suspiciously well-kept coins from a museum and was selling them here. He wasn’t doing a good job at the selling part though.

I thought better not to argue about it. I paid him the cost and waited for my funded answer.

“I am your grandfather’s brother. Well… not a real brother but not less either. He died two years ago after leaving his collection with me. I was here to find you and fortunately, I have.”

I blinked blankly at the man’s answer.

Of course, I am going to believe a man who just asked for money for an answer. HA! Sure I would.

I smiled at the man in a polite way.

“And I am your grandaughter’s future child, sir.”

I replied attempting to be humorous but the man definitely did not find this funny.

He took a small metal box out of his jacket pocket. He opened it and gave it in my hands.

I looked curiously into it.

My eyes widened in recognition as the engraved pattern of a cartoonish golden lady burned into my already damp eyes.

I do not know if I cried in shock or in despair or at the fact that my grandfather was actually dead and he did not once think to die in the comfort of his family but to run away mysteriously and never be heard from again.

I cried and I do not know when I stopped. I was with my family back again with the man introducing himself as my grandfather’s not less than a brother to my father.

I kept the coin close to me ever since. It was the coin I had found in a Cracker's packet at the age of 6 and had taken to my grandfather asking if he would keep it in his coin collection. That day, he had laughed and hugged me saying it was the best piece in his collection.

By Bhavya Kumari