Articles

Black to White

By Ananya S. Guha

Now after seeing red, we are witness to black. Black everywhere, in ques, lines, shops and markets. We have been blackened, so the change is on. Black to white is the mantra. Then the change.To banks for white, to the shops, to the banks who refuse to do anything else, excepting chanting the white or black mantra. Even my normally white face is changing to black.

 Then money stashed away in houses is black. Earlier it was pure, as pure as gold. Oh gold, talking about gold, there is also the conversion from black to gold! But gold after a certain limit is also black. Black times have come, but we are determined to change all this into pure pure, unsullied, white.

 So,why did it happen? It was a silent revolution. You see all these years the people of our country were color blind. They could not distinguish between black and white. So they had black holes, doors, corridors, rooms in their houses thinking that these were ideal places to stash money. No one would know, and  they could continue praying to God thanking Him for all his blessings. After all, a few crores of rupees make a lot of difference. You can buy a few houses, sell them off and so on. You  can make foreign visits and of course you can buy that  unalloyed thing called Gold. It almost sounds like a fairy tale, doesn’t it a house of pure gold?  Then, of course their children won’t have to study, they can do business in gold, enter politics. Black is so symbolic, that it can saddle you firmly anywhere, till of course the Income Tax departments are looking the other way. So our country now is color splashed:black, white, and red. And some people thanks to income tax raids are red faced.

 In the midst of this silent revolution, people are weeping,shouting and sadly enough dying. Because some unscrupulous people are not accepting black. They want only white they say. So they will give you four hundred white for five hundred black. But our people  have such a fervor for white, that they greedily accept  it  without  fuss. So we are on a white campaign, irrespective of caste,community or religion. Hai Hai Black. I just hope we are not  becoming racist.

 In  the meantime there are  whispers that there are income  tax raids a la black ( money). The poor say ” we do not  have any income, so let them raid”. The rich smirk ” like Ambani we have converted black to white”.

 The rumor also has  it  that  there will  be conversion tables and charts. The  long lines  that I see maybe also for that. Hurray, our conscience  is taking a beating. All over  the message is ” good let them have it,these thieves”. But who they are we cannot underpin, because in this  country they are ubiquitous, they change colours,  black to  white.

 In the meantime it is  heard that some great man spent a few hundred crores on his daughter’s wedding. She must have descended from the heavens, and the money must have come from there, otherwise why is it white? From tomorrow I am going to wear white shirts. We need apartheid in money, as its colour is changing into despicable black.

 In the meantime people are dying, heart attacks, money attacks, income tax attacks. Some are committing suicides out of sheer anguish. Some do not have identity cards or pan cards, they are used to stowing cash  in their houses. The conversion charts better be ready, before macabre death converts us.

About the Author: Ananya S Guha lives and writes from Shillong in North East India.

One Comment

  1. Money in circulation is after all what the Government machinery had printed for use by the public in carrying out the varied everyday transactions without any hitch.
    So there appears to be no such thing as money being black or white, as long as it’s brought under transparency and accountability factors by the Income Tax administration in a meaningful way!
    That way the quantum of money that’s not accounted forcan suitably be dealt with!
    In stead, what exactly happened is detrimental to the common people who are otherwise law abiders in bringing their income revealed,assessed, and tax genuinely paid;
    Not to speak of those not having income chargeable to tax!
    The demonetization drive resorted to by the government all on a sudden without prior arrangements for keeping sufficient funds in
    banks for disposal to the Account holders resulted in untold misery to the people;
    Better it would have been thought of once cashless transactions are put in place effectively!