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Gold Coins - Sandhya Acharya Sandhya Acharya is presently doing an MBA in the USA. She says, "Life for me is a sequence of happiness, sorrow, dreams and hopes and Writing - and expression of life."

Cars, autos, scooters sped by as a mother and daughter stood waiting at the busy intersection. The mother clutched her daughter’s hand firmly as they finally crossed the road. The afternoon sun was unmerciful but she had to do several tasks after she dropped her daughter to school. Primary school unfortunately began only in the afternoon. Maybe she had time to stop at the grocery shop now so she could take a different route while coming back. She had made her list for the week. Dal, potatoes and some rice. The baniyawala started marking out the items in her account.. "Don’t go too far." she warned her daughter as she saw her trailing off to another end of the shop. The child was testing the different dals spread out at the counter trying to spell them out as she was being taught in school. Some green, some yellow, some red. As the baniyawalla filled her mother’s blue book with the items on the list, she looked about at the boxes near the cash counter. Suddenly her eyes stopped. The second jar after the one with zebra peppermints. What was that? It shined in the afternoon heat. Gold. Full of gold coins! "Amma, what is that?", she asked fascinated. "Chocolate" the mother replied distractedly. "Chahiye kya?" The baniyawala asked the child goadingly, eager to make a sale. The child slid behind her mother’s sari and whispered "Nahin". Her mother had taught her not to create a scene when they went out shopping. "Samaan shyaam ko ghar pe bhej dena". The mother held her daughter’s hand again and left the shop. "Have you tasted it Amma?", the child asked. The glitter of the gold coins still persisted in her eyes. "Yes", the mother replied trying to avoid looking into her daughter’s eyes. "It is like any other chocolate."

Have you ever tried to answer a child’s enthusiasm with nonchalance? Have you ever seen the wonder, the magic in a child’s eyes and not known what to do with it? Have you felt the distress when a child thinks you can do anything, looks at you with pride and expectation, but you don’t know what to do?

Such thoughts plagued the mother as she dropped her daughter at school and started back. Her heart felt heavy and tired. She looked around with despair. Bombay. She had come to this city as a bride thinking it was the city of dreams. It remained a city of dreams. Reality was quite different to what she had envisioned. Times were especially tough these days. She and her husband did everything to avoid unnecessary expenses. She wished she could have done a job and helped her husband with the finances, but she hadn’t studied further than P.U.C and then had been married. Now she was much too busy with the children and the house. In all fairness her life wasn’t anything extraordinary. They were a normal middle class family like any other. She wasn’t really complaining. Her family was everything to her and she was truly happy…but today, today she felt helpless.

She remembered her childhood. They were a big family and God knows, her parents had struggled too. But she and her sisters had never known want. Those ice-cream treats when someone passed an exam, those pastries that came at the end of the day from the hotel where her father worked, the mangoes in summer from her neighbor’s orchard. She would treasure those memories all through her life.
What memories would her daughter treasure? She felt a lump in her throat.

It is indeed those little things, those little joys of childhood that fill the rest of our lives with such special memories. The gift of innocence, of feeling free, of feeling cared for.

They weren’t just chocolate slabs that looked like gold coins. They were the gift of childhood that would last her daughter a lifetime. Wasn’t there anything she could do?

Practicality now took over her confused strain of thoughts. She knew she was a good seamstress. She would talk to Shyamala. There was a great demand for embroidery, she was saying. She had promised twenty rupees for a piece. She would have to take a detour, but now she was filled with purpose and her steps fell faster. It was a simple embroidery. It took her three days. Twenty rupees.

"Today." She thought to herself smilingly. They walked to the grocery. The child looked wistfully at the gold coins in the second jar by the cash counter. "Bhaiya, bees rupaye ka yeh chocolate sikka milega?" The child couldn’t believer her ears. Her mother was the best. She could do anything. She looked at the coins as her mother put them into her hands. "Keep some for your sister", she could hear her mother saying. She touched them gingerly and felt them with wonder. Her mother helped her unwrap a coin. A dark slab of chocolate. She put it into her mouth and savored it until it melted away. Her steps were lighter and happier for days after that. She told all her friends about it. It was the best chocolate she had tasted.

The mother had indeed given her the gift of childhood and a lifetime of memories.

Years have passed now, but the gold coins still remain the best chocolate the child ever tasted.

I know, for I am that child.

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