By Adolf Washington

I got off an Uber cab on November 8 in Bengaluru and the cab driver refused my 500. He tells me “All 500s and 1000s currency notes are fake” politely adding “don’t you know what PM Modi said?” I felt poorer with the 500 but felt richer with the few hundred rupee notes and more informed that the commonest-of-the- common-man still didn’t get the information right.

Modiji’s “surgical strike” as some are calling it, has not permeated down the lowest rungs. You don’t expect the common man on the line of duty to know what the whole idea of treating these notes as crap really mean unless you use all available means of communication.

The surprise (shock) announcement to declare 500 and 1000 currency notes as non-legal-tender in the open market after the midnight of November 9 is no surprise for many of Modiji’s ‘Yes men (and women)’ if one would presume that they were asked to clear their Augean stables judiciously before the ‘surprise’ announcement. You don’t need a cabinet meeting or consultation with the opposition for this. In fact, you shouldn’t (reader’s guess).

If Modiji intended well to crack down on ‘black money’ and those using chunks of it to fund terrorism, well.

But it is not-so-well for those who have to stand in serpentine queues to deposit a single hard-earned 500 or 1000 note and lose a day’s wage in the bargain, and what with putting up with grumpy faces of bank employees facing the brunt of a desperate multitude with currency dripping from the sweat-of-their brow.

While our Prime Minister may portray ‘method in madness,’ there is still madness in greater proportion.

The government spends sack loads of money on publicity and hoardings but didn’t spend a pittance to tell people how to secure their hard-earned ‘white’ money.

It is business galore for those who can swipe their credit and debit cards or accept online transfers but not for the wayside vegetable vendor and the like who counts his earnings by the coin. I can imagine a new breed of short-term business where people will buy from the gullible and ill-informed 500 for 400 and 1000 for 900. Money will have more than face-value for some, than ever before. Numismatists across the world can sell these notes for higher prices later when it gains ‘historic value’ or ‘nostalgic value’-a sure long-term investment plan in an unstable economy.

The ‘positive’ fall-out of Modiji’s ‘surprise announcement is that more people opening banks accounts for the first time, more ‘selfies’ with the scrapped notes, creative social-network postings, upbeat nano technology (satellite-linked) to track the big ones as planned, greater hopes to see 5000 or 10,000 denomination currency notes.

Dateline November 9, 2016. Mid-night. Modiji, we eagerly await results on the ‘surprise crackdown.’