Was reading a mail from mum. The old fashioned snail mail style. With her characteristic loopy Bengali script. What struck me was the mention of age and growing old. Perhaps the mention of my age (and thus indirectly implying her age) wasn't a good thing after all :)

The things you learn about your parents are amazing. What is more fascinating is that with age the ability to look at all sorts of decisions in the sharp binary mode goes away. Life is so complex and yet at the heart of it the moral story that can help guide one along becomes simpler. Stripped of all need to appear differently to different folks, the ability to see and perceive issues become very interesting.

This isn't about my credit card although I could perhaps moan and wail at the recent bills. But that's for another day. This is about the infrequent news articles I read about the GoI planning to replace the existing currency notes with a much improved 'plastic' ones. I am aghast at what they could do to my wallet.

There are wallets and, then there are wallets. Some are organized with the notes arranged in an order by the denominations, all properly smooth and helping these currency notes lead a longer life. Then there are wallets which are stuffed to the gills with all sort of papers, tickets, coupons interleaved with currency notes. And, then there is my wallet - currency notes randomly folded and kept together precisely as I received them as change. The benefit of this system is that I can see a bill fold and recall the transaction I made. The downsides are that I am always unable to figure out the exact change I am carrying and, the notes take a hit. Most notes end up having a nice split down the middle and with the current state of 10 and 20 rupee notes in circulation, more often than not I end up having to add them to my collection of 'notes in need of repair'.

The introduction of 'plastic' notes would probably get me to change my habits of keeping aside 15 minutes a week to clean the wallet of the cruft and, put the notes back in some order. Small stuff but it is going to take some getting used to.