The joy of pin money

Rajiv Bakshi

WHO doesn’t wait for his salary? Be he a daily wage-earner, a retired banker, an ONGC employee, or a software professional, everyone wants his salary or pension on the right day. Pensioners like me start waiting for the next pension after the 5th of the subsequent month, when the pension is exhausted on the payment of frivolous bills — mobile phones, credit card dues, electricity, milk and grocery. One may be earning Rs 5,000 or Rs 1 lakh a month, the wait for the salary or pension starts either in the first week, as with retired persons, or on the last Friday of the month, as with bankers. 

More than the pension, I think it was our pocket money that we would wait for when we were younger. I remember I used to get a princely pocket money of Rs 30 per month when I was in Sainik School Kapurthala, 55 years ago. We, the cadets, were not allowed to keep this money with us for fear of losing it and so it was deposited with the housemasters and house matrons. 

With the passage of time, the pocket money went up. But the urge to get more money was always there. At times, some students would cheat their illiterate parents, and ask for more to cover their expenses on stationery, etc. 

I would go to my mother’s place in Jalandhar every month for a day or two. At that time I was drawing a handsome salary as a bank officer. The first thing I would tell my mother was to bring me a soft drink and a large packet of chips. It was not that I could not afford to spend Rs 40 on these, but it gave me pleasure to receive it from my 70-year-old mother, who would, in the scorching sun, go to a grocery shop with an umbrella in one hand to bring these for her son. I still miss the pocket money and the soft drinks which I got on each visit to my hometown. 

A few days back, I got a gift coupon worth $10 from a store I occasionally visited during my journey to California. I immediately forwarded the gift voucher to my daughter-in-law who stays in Freemont, to buy me a small nice gift. I promised her that I will reimburse the balance amount from my Travel Card which still had a few dollars left, even after my three visits to the States. Pat came her reply, a few hours later on my email: "Papa, I have bought a nice pair of stockings for myself. Thanks for the pocket money and my Christmas gift." 

PS: She is a software engineer and earns pretty well!