A week after demonetization, many Indians have war stories about their attempts to get new cash (and sometimes, get rid of too much old cash). Every event - from purchasing vegetables to wedding ceremonies - has been thrown out of joint due to the cash crunch. Raghu, a policy analyst at a think-tank, noted that at a family wedding he attended last week, the bride's side cancelled the chappal-stealing ceremony because they would have only got old notes in return for the stolen shoes.
Here are five anecdotes of people chasing the rare bird called New Notes - and also helping each other out in the interim.
Helping my vegetable vendor set up PayTM: Shashikant, an entrepreneur in Pune, Maharashtra
"Ganesh, my local Subziwalla usually transacts entirely in cash - I go to him because his vegetables are excellent, the freshest in the market. He's been reeling from demonetization, his customers don't have money and he's been allowing some of his regulars to purchase on credit. I helped him set up PayTM on his phone, and he has started accepting payments via the app. His customers, he says, are super happy."
Sharing Mrs. Khosla's parathas: Chirantan Chatterjee, an IIMB professor
"I was on an Air Indigo flight, had no cash for food and my card didn't work. My seatmate Mrs. Khosla offered me her parathas. 'Adjust kar lo beta, thodi dinon ki baat hai,' she said, observing my misery. And so the hungry stomach got some solace. Mrs. Khosla is now single, her husband expired a few years back and she herself has retired as a central government employee. Her governments might have disappointed her over the decades, but her parathas haven't. Here's a salute to her India."
No change: Mahesh K P, a Developer at Thoughtworks
"I Ola-pool with a friend to get from my office to my home in Bannerghatta road. Our Ola driver was a talkative guy - but then these days strangers everywhere break the ice by talking about demonetization. He said that he's been getting plenty of passengers who haven't set up their wallets on the Ola app, and told us he has willingly taken old Rs. 500 notes, since the passengers don't ask for change."
Paying the moneylender: Rani, low income working single mother of two boys
"I had saved up around Rs. 4,500 in my house, to pay a loan I had taken from a moneylender. The interest rate he charges is pretty high, so when the announcement came I went to the ICICI bank to deposit the money and get new notes, but the queues were very long and I had to go to work. Last week, I couldn't exchange the notes at all so this week I went again early in the morning. People had brought food to share while standing in the queue. The wait wasn't too long, and I finally encashed the amount."
Improvising for a black money stash: R, who runs a small business in Kerala
"I appreciate PM Modi for this crackdown on black money, but it is very difficult for me to not transact in black when my entire business network is not willing to take white money. I have to work with clients and contractors who transact fully in black and don't want to use bills or do bank transfers. Without them, I would lose 70% of my business. So I had a lot of cash lying at home.
The day after the announcement, a hawala trader approached me with a 60/40 deal, offering to launder money for a 40% cut. I refused, and instead called up my friends and family who are not in business, to help me deposit the cash into their bank accounts. But unless the broader business network starts to transact in white, the black money stash will build up again - one person can't change alone."
