Accha’s Accounts

Accounts and accountants have always fascinated me; perhaps, `intrigued’ may be a better word. For a time, I toyed with the idea of joining a bank – that too, only as a cashier!  In those impressionable days, `the cashier’ was the most impressive person around. Walk into any bank, and you find a long queue waiting upon him. And he sits smugly inside a closely guarded cubicle, with money all around him! Unless he smiles, the money doesn’t reach those in the queue; no wonder, the cashier was held in awe by all those who needed money, apart from the likes of me!

I was `intrigued’ on the other hand wondering how tough it must be for the guy to keep account of a hell of a lot of money. When he comes in the morning, not a less than a lakh of rupees must be at his disposal, or so I thought. By the time the cash counter closed, not much would be left. Accounting for every rupee in his custody must not have been a joke – poor chap, I used to feel sorry for him when such thoughts crossed my mind.

Well, why this accounting story now, you must be wondering. Blame it on the genes, I say!  I was born and brought up in an environment where accounting was a daily affair. Now, before you get any funny ideas, let me clarify that no one in my family is an accountant and none has been the butt of jokes as most accountants are. To tell you the truth, my interest in accounting can be traced to my dad – may his soul rest in peace!

My Accha  (that’s how we call the old man in God’s Own Language) has had this obsession with money matters because he knew from experience that money did matter; it was as `simple’ as that for him. It was made simpler  - or was it more complex? -  by the fact that there was always a wide gap between demand and supply as far as he was concerned. In the good old days of Nehruvian Socialism – which, by the way, was an article of faith for him – money was hard to come by and there were too many days left in the month at the end of the money. The fact that he didn’t have a job or steady income, but five kids who were going to school/college, made managing the limited `supply’ a lot more difficult, considering the considerable `demand’, you must remember.

Any way, dad was damn serious about his accounting. You must be thinking why it was so necessary for him to account when he had no income. To be honest, I must admit, after all these years, even I don’t have any answer to this question, you see! I can very well understand why the State Bank of India or Mukesh Dhirubhai Ambani would like to keep track of their accounts but why should my dear dad should have been so particular about tracking money which was not there in the first place! Let us leave it there like that for the time being.

My earliest memories of Accha’s Accounts are a strange mix of a long Ledger book, many coins and a few currency notes – and lots of arguing, if not shouting! Never an economist, not even an accountant, he was still very particular about a proper Ledger! Accounting, on a normal day, started at around eleven in the morning. Dad would empty his already near empty wallet on his bed and then arrange money in order, which was a fairly easy task because there was hardly any! Remember, those were the days when coins were aplenty – of every denomination, starting form one paisa through two, three, five, ten, twenty, twenty-five and fifty on to one rupee. Believe me, you, all these coins did exist in the none too distant past. Then, there were currency notes in the denomination of one, two, five, ten, etc. We needn’t go beyond that because dad’s wallet didn’t have to account for higher denominations.

For dad, it was tough: coins of smaller denominations were much more and the currency notes few. Once all denominations were piled properly in small heaps, he would check out with the balance of the previous day’s account. Then came the difficult job of matching every paisa spent with the previous day’s balance and to tally it with the many coins and the few notes spread on the cot. Being a strict disciplinarian, he kept a record of every paisa he spent. That was fine, but he expected everyone else to follow suit! Since we kids never got the privilege of pocket money, we were left out; that meant, the only other person who was the beneficiary of his income, if we could call it so, was my mother. So, mom was summarily summoned to account for her part of the money.

That’s when the arguments and the shouting would start! Till today, I can’t fathom why there should have been any argument or shouting, because dad had hardly any money to give mom!   Nonetheless, he would insist on a paisa-to-paisa accounting. I can still remember those days when Amma would insist, truthfully at that, that she couldn’t recall how much she spent on vegetables or eggs or fish, and then she would add for effect, “in any case, you gave me only one rupee yesterday, so how much do you think I could have spent?” But dad was one who wouldn’t take that for an answer. After about half an hour, the argument would still be on, which would end when Amma would take out some twenty-seven paise from somewhere, saying, “ok, here, take it, and now it is settled, right?” Accha would smile triumphantly, adding, “see, I told you, it must be somewhere here”. Action ends for the day, only to resume same time, same place, the next morning.

We grew up seeing this drama day after day, year after year. As years passed, as we settled in life, and Accha’s wallet assumed some shape and size, accounting continued, albeit daily, without any let or hindrance. I got to see it, though only when I visited every year. And were I glad that the passing years had not reduced its intensity at all! My brother who stays at home told me that nothing had changed. Dad’s grandchildren too were enamoured by the morning drama. I remember a joke that I read somewhere: “Accounting: a collection of figures running around looking for an argument”. Probably, they had in mind the daily routine in my own household!

Dad hardly traveled out of Kerala, but when he did, daily accounting was not done away with. The Ledger traveled with him, much to my mom’s consternation. But I do recall my mom telling us wistfully after dad’s death, how she was missing the morning routine…

Accha’s Accounts also tell us the value of money – in real terms, I hasten to add. If I want to know how much money was spent on my eldest sister’s marriage way back in 1972, I just have to check out The Ledger. Right down to the last laddu, everything is recorded. If my son is interested to know how, over the years, the bus fares have increased or how the barber’s rates have gone up, the best reference would be The Ledgers. I can tell you the exact money spent on every brick that helped dad build our house; it doesn’t matter that the accounts for this purpose would be spread over a decade because of dad’s financial constraints.

Soon after I left Delhi for my studies, dad sent me some money to pay the hostel fees and the like. Considering his accounting traits, I apprised him in detail how I had spent the amount. A few days later, he wrote to me, “it’s ok, you don’t have to send me any such details; just make sure you know the value of money”. See, basically, dad was a nice guy!

After dad’s death, The Ledgers have been retained intact. When we all get together, we talk about his accounting fondly. Sometime after he passed away, we took out his last book, which made us know the man that he was a little more intimately. He used to help several girl children in the village with small donations for buying textbooks or guides, or for paying their tuition fee. For this, he was dependent on the money that we – his own kids – sent him fairly regularly. In between, if any of these kids needed assistance, he would borrow money from anyone he knew and give it to them. And we had to settle a few loans like that after his demise.

Dad was a daily visitor to all the temples in the one km range of our house and he would liberally spent money on various poojas, which called for accounting. The clot in his brain which neither he nor any one of us knew about had suddenly become active.  And we came to know of it later only from The Ledger, after his death.  Till the day he was admitted to the hospital, he had kept the accounts religiously. Accha’s daily balance was coming down, literally and figuratively, with every passing day. The cash availability for the last day was a princely sum of five rupees and seventy-five paise. But the shape of things to come showed up in a contribution entry against one of the temples that read: “orma illa”, meaning `can’t remember’. And that was the very last entry in my Accha’s Accounts…

George Bernard Shaw once said: “My father must have had some elementary education, for he could read and write and keep accounts inaccurately”. Ain’t I lucky on that count: my father was quite accurate in his accounts!

PS: Taking a cue from my dad, I thought I too should keep accounts. It started off fairly ok, but after about a month or so, one gloomy wintry morning, when I asked about her accounts, my wife said: “Dilip, we need to talk”. Having heard this dialogue in several English films as a prologue to the inevitable divorce, I closed The Ledger – for good, and forever J