Barters

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I may be no good at bargaining but I am pretty good at barters.

Life on earth itself is known to be a commerce with the elements. Call it biology or physiology or ecology.

Take trees for instance.

They constantly exchange oxygen with carbon dioxide in the air for their growth and thrills.

A mango tree flaunts her juicy golden mangoes for which she has no immediate use. She doesn't eat her mangoes. Fools called men pluck them, eat them, and throw away their seed.

Ha! That is what the mango tree really wants...her seed dig deep into the soil and give birth to her offspring....she has no womb.

And flowers bearing honey don't drink it...honey is just a ruse to attract bees, butterflies and birds so that they transport their pollen and imbed them elsewhere. Flowers don't like self-pollination...like we don't approve same-gotra marriages or incest.

I guess there maybe a deeper reason why Shivjee swallowed that hemlock (not fully though). Maybe to silence Parvati for the nonce.

Coming to our PG Wodehouse, Uncle Tom had a princely French cook Anatole. And Sir Watkyn Bassett had an antique silver cow creamer. And the Bassett was trying to  swindle Uncle Tom for an unequal barter till Aunt Dahlia and Jeeves rescued Tom (by pinching that cow creamer and handing it over to him). 

I guess all philatelists and numismatists barter their wares all the time among themselves.

And then there was what we called: "Mutual Alliance": "You marry my sister and I marry yours"

Nations of course indulge in barter in this globalized world of cheap Chinese labor.

And the bloody Chinese are withdrawing their idiotic army from some fingers and lakes in a tit-for-tat tradeoff.  

Modijee is now earning goodwill by his vaccine diplomacy.

At a more abstract level we 'give respect and take respect'...except with some professors (whom I better not name) during my innings at IIT KGP.

I once had a 'deal' with our HoD, Professor CL Roy. He sought my invaluable support in his Faculty Meetings. I agreed provided he didn't insist on my attending the Senate and making me a member of sundry departmental committees:

http://gpsastry.blogspot.com/2008/08/professor-c-l-roya-mosaic-of-memories.html

IIT KGP also evolved what is ingeniously called "Joint Guidance of PhDs": "You scratch my back; I scratch yours"

Just now my good son is looking to "exchange" my old gold i-phone with a brand new one.

And there are these famous barter deals that can be described as:

"I will bring husk, you bring rice, and we will mix them, blow the husk away, and cook our lunch"

And right now in West Bengal Didi and Amitjee are bartering gaalis (vile abuses).

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

During our school years in the 1950s we kids never had any real cash...but we did have our cryptocurrencies. 

All of us collected empty cigarette packets from the roadside.

Ah!

What fancy names they had then....

Gold Flake, Pall Mall, Wills Navy Cut, Capstan, Players, Berkeley, Scissors, Marlboro, Passing Show, Four Square, Bristol, Benson and Hedges, Dunhill, Cool, and our vey own Charminar.

How delightful it was to watch the designs on their covers! In particular, I was going to bed with a rare "Passing Show" packet in my pocket.

And why Gold Flake is called Honeydew...I can't figure. And what a capstan has to do with tobacco smoke. 

And then we assigned 'values' for each brand by which it was easy to barter:

Gold Flake was equal to 10 crypo-rupees; and Charminar to 1... something like the Moh's Scale of Hardness:

Diamond (10), Corundum (9), Topaz (8), Quartz (7), Orthoclase (6), Apatite (5), fluorite (4), Calcite (3), Gypsum (2), Talc (1). 

Bengalis are fond of ranking intellectuals on a scale of 10 starting with Rabindranath Tagore (10)

And Amit Shah (1)

:)

And then all of us had marbles of different varieties.

The cheapest were what we called (పిండి ఉక్కులు). I don't know what their English translation is (if any). They were fragile and appeared to be made of hardened flour. I do not know. And they were uneven.

They were never used in the play...they were our crypto coins. We paid each other by barter. 

Then came the glass ones.

And these came in different vibrant colors and flowery interior decos. Each had its own value. It was with them we actually played. In due course they took several hits and got chips prised off their bodies here and there...battle-worn. Their barter value depended on the number and kind of hits they took. At times they broke into two.

And kids from Nellore brought shiny white ball bearings. These too were useless in actual play...no grip. But they were prize possessions and each one of them got ten పిండి ఉక్కులు in barter. 

And finally the huge big glass ones stuck in broken soda water bottles.

What a wonderful thing was that soda water bottle! Its body was of thick bluish glass. And it had a cute kink in its throat where the marble got stuck when thrust down by its hard  rubber "opener" with a cock, placing bottle on our chests. The neck of the bottle was a one-way valve, like the kink in our good old clinical thermometers...what a design!

Where have all those bottles gone?

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Where have all the flowers gone, long time passing?
Where have all the flowers gone, long time ago?
Where have all the flowers gone?
Young girls picked them everyone
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?

Where have all the young girls gone, long time passing?
Where have all the young girls gone, long time ago?
Where have all the young girls gone?
Gone to young men everyone
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?

Where have all the young men gone, long time passing?
Where have all the young men gone, long time ago?
Where have all the young men gone?
Gone for soldiers everyone
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?

Where have all the soldiers gone, long time passing?
Where have all the soldiers gone, long time ago?
Where have all the soldiers gone?
Gone to graveyards, everyone
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?

Where have all the graveyards gone, long time passing?
Where have all the graveyards gone, long time ago?
Where have all the graveyards gone?
Gone to flowers, everyone
When will we ever learn?
When will we ever learn?

Where have all the flowers gone, long time passing?
Where have all the flowers gone, long time ago?
Where have all the flowers gone?
Young girls picked them everyone
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?

....."Where Have All The Flowers Gone?" – Pete Seeger

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