Papa’s Red Money Box
Papa’s red money box came out of his closet every day. How much did you take out? he’d ask Maa. She recited the daily expense report with the precision of a helpline service representative. Every penny accounted, never a single slip. Our eyes would be fixed on the box, hoping to get a fleeting peek inside. Would its touch be steely? Or had smooth feel of those notes? We couldn’t imagine if it were heavy like Maa’s salt container or feathery like ghee’s.
Fridays were the most exciting nights. Papa would give us each a two-rupee coin from his handspan-sized bank for our Saturday samosa party during recess. We would load our pockets and prance away, dreaming of touching his red money box. Maybe after growing up, as Maa could? I use it for essentials—veggies, sugar and milk, bread and oil, Maa replied whenever we questioned her authority over the box. We were jealous, my brother more than me.
Once dinner was over, Papa would tally the balance, log the expenses in a diary, and stash it with the box like twins behind the glass doors of his almirah—a safe place. The diary changed on the first of Januarys. Sometimes midyear if filled from cover to cover with Papa’s handwriting scribbling all over like the zigzag trails of a scorpion running over sand. Stacked in a neat pile, they barged into every empty corner with the changing calendars. Keepsakes; for crosschecking, Papa said. Maybe just his mementos because we never saw him double-checking the old accounts.
One evening, Papa was pacing in his bedroom and counting the notes from the box after every few rounds. Some notes are missing, we heard him say through the ajar door, after he let Maa in. Big notes! We could hear Maa’s feeble voice catching up with Papa’s sharp one. We shrugged at each other when Papa summoned us. We hummed and nodded and shook our heads at his questions. He pinched the top of his nose, rubbed the spot between his eyes, and pushed his thick-rimmed glasses back. Teary-eyed, we looked at Maa, and she blink-nodded as if assuring us she’d handle it. We need to cut on expensive items for the remaining days of this month; dry fruits, oil, fruits, milk, Papa declared. Was milk even expensive?
After that incident, we never saw the red money box out of its den. Accounting became a hushed affair. Papa and Maa still tallied the records every night in their bedroom with the door shut. Papa’s salary hiked, our Friday allowance increased, fruits and dry fruits became regular, ghee’s container grew heavier, but the box’s semblance had already started to fade from our minds. Its glimpses, the squawky sound of its lid, all became memories in our memories.
Years later, when Maa passed, Papa refused to leave our matchbox house of three small rooms. We invited him over and over to live with either of us. Her haven, her memories, he said, not ready to abandon those stinky walls with seepage. Whenever we went to see him, he guarded the red money box with the same routine, dodging our eager eyes, its twin never missing the company. What treasure was he saving now? For whom? On his rare, brief visits to us, he’d keep it next to his pillow. We had seen him burying his nose into its hollow as if the box were Maa’s itar vial.
After Papa’s demise, we finally set our hands on his asset. Nestled amid the staggering mass of accounting ledgers, it became a forgotten souvenir during Papa’s long illness, fighting against a shroud of dust, dull steel peeping through its chipped now-coppery skin. We touched it for the first time, opened it, and inhaled the trapped memories. A black pen was still inside with an old note of five—not even enough to buy the filling of a samosa today. Our eyes turned glassy. We shuffled through the brown-yellow pages of the diaries.
Do you remember the day money was stolen? my brother asked. I shrugged, mulling over a brittle page with a remark in Papa’s zigzag letters. Perhaps Maa took those three notes out, he said. What do you think? She’d replaced our timeworn school bags two months later. Got us enrolled in a weekend trekking trip, too. My savings, she’d announced to Papa’s raised brows. My fingers shivered as they licked more dirt off the thin paper, recollecting those furtive, scary moments of snitching the three notes at dawn to buy the fashion accessories rich girls flaunted around. Papa’s words stung my heart. He had mentioned a donation of one-fifty to an orphanage that was my namesake. They knew; they knew all this while. I shredded the humiliating proof and got on with the documentation I so insisted upon for years.
We signed the sale deed of the house against Maa’s last wish. What could tether us to come back? When we departed, Papa’s last note and pen were in my brother’s bag. And in my car’s glove compartment sat the red money box—a conferrer, a possession, a souvenir, an instigator.
End
RASHMI AGRAWAL copywrites for a living and is proud to have slogged as a software professional in her previous life. She often writes by a big window, looking at the greenery around. She thinks she writes to rest her chaotic imaginations but ends up giving them wings. When not writing, she listens to audiobooks and daydreams of publishing books drafted during the annual NaNoWriMo. Her words are available in Bending Genres, Scrawl Place, Brilliant Flash Fiction, and elsewhere.
SEAN BW PARKER MA is a writer, artist, musician and academic. He has written or contributed to numerous books on culture, justice reform and poetry. He lives in Worthing, West Sussex.