A mesmerising episode happened when Alka, 47, a travel blogger and a resident of Vaishali in Ghaziabad, was travelling back towards Sindhanur town in Raichur district of Karnataka, after visiting Pattadakal and Badami cave temples (both UNESCO World Heritage sites), when her husband broke the demonetisation news to her. Unmindful of the cash crunch that followed, Alka and her mother checked into a hotel paying Rs 2,900 cash from the old currency that they carried.
But what followed, not only proved how far she can take a penny, it also gave her a firsthand glimpse of kindness shown by strangers.
On a tour to world heritage sites in south India with her 70-year-old mother, she completed her 3,000km trip, as scheduled, hassle-free and reached home a week later with Rs 80 still in her wallet.
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After spending the next day (November 9) planning her journey ahead, Alka, contacted Sindhanur-based travel agent K Ramu who turned her saviour.
As Alka describes in her blog, Ramu, who was not well-versed with Hindi, told her:
“Madam parwa nahi, aap bolo kidhar janeka hai? Main taxi donga aapko.. Parway nahi..(No need to worry madam. Just tell me where you want to go, I will book a cab for you).
On the night of November 10, when Alka and her mother returned to Sindhanur after visiting ancient temple ruins in Hampi, 75km away, their sole worry for their next day’s journey to Trichy in Tamil Nadi, 800km from Sindhanur.
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“He (Ramu) had told me to swipe my card at a friend’s petrol pump from where he would collect cash later on. But we were concerned about the rest of the trip,” she says. She paid Rs 2,400 bill at the petrol pump.
While Alka, an avid traveller, prefers cashless transactions, her mother, Dr Rajni Joshi, a retired professor, is not savvy with digital transactions. The currency in Rs 1,000 notes that she carried was rendered useless after the demonetisation announcement.
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