20-rupee note

 

I look outside the casements large

To stare upon the sea,

The endless blues of azure deep

Shimmering jauntily

 

Closer still, the swathes of palm

Breathe life in emerald zest,

Somewhere, between, lies Harriet Peak

With a lighthouse on its crest

 

These tropical views I drank for long –

I could not ask for more,

Me ensconced in the island views

The seas, the palm fringed shore

 

But till yesterday, I did not know

Mt. Harriet or its scout –

In candy stripes of red and white

The North Bay Lighthouse stout

 

Or that they used to grace the notes

I held many a time,

That cerise-coloured 20-rupee

I think it is a crime

 

Perhaps it never struck me deep

That Harriet was this grand,

And all these days, the banknote’s charm

I had failed to understand

 

(But Harriet and its grandeur peak –

Needs no humans to adore,

It has been here for million years

And will linger round for more)

 

Am I glad I pilgrimed then

To the country’s farthest tip,

Awestruck by day by Harriet’s hues

By night, its lighthouse blip

 

Even today, the first image

That comes to mind to float,

When I read the word, the Andamans –

Is the 20 rupee note

 

But the value of that memory

Everlasting in these eyes

Is worth much more than can be stamped

On a fiat paper’s price…

 

30^th March’24

 

I was truly caught unaware of my numismatics on my first day at Port Blair. Our car was turning around a bend of the island around the capital city, that opened up to show Mount Harriet and the eye-catching North Bay Lighthouse. It was so picturesque I asked our car -driver to stop by the roadside, as I sauntered out with my camera to freeze the moment as best as possible in digital pixels and human memory. It was then that Tiruji, our driver came up to me and showed an old 20-rupee note depicting the same scene delightfully (the current version shows the Ellora Caves and the Kailash temple, another stunner of a must-see destination, but somehow I have always liked the earlier series of India’s banknotes). I distinctly remembered Kanchenjunga in the obverse of the 100-rupee note, but I had failed to note Andaman in the lower denomination – the joys of travelling where you never know where you pick up what piece of information and where you realise what sliver of wisdom.

After taking over a dozen photos of that wonderful view, I checked into my hotel room and perhaps for my devotion to the island’s beauty, I found my room looking out into the sea and proffering that same scintillating view of the 20-rupee note.