Rupees, Dirhams, and Growing Up
Rupees, Dirhams, and Growing Up From Borrowing to Becoming Denzil Jayasinghe 4 min read · 17 hours ago W hichever way I looked at it, my salary refused to behave itself. By the last two weeks of every month, it would shrink into nothingness, leaving me wandering — somewhat sheepishly — into my mother’s room. She never asked unnecessary questions; she simply opened her purse and handed me a fifty rupees, sometimes two. In those years, she was my permanent bank, my monthly lender of hope. And she lent with the amused certainty of someone who knew I would be back again in a fortnight, pockets empty, promises well-rehearsed. It had all begun rather innocently with small borrowings of ten rupees. But like so many habits picked up in youth, the amounts grew with alarming ease. By month’s end, I would owe her one or two hundred, and be left with perhaps a hundred and fifty to carry on with my worldly ambitions. Then, when I turned eighteen, my father handed me a savings passbook. Seven hundre...