A Rupee worth 64 or 100 paise

9th April 2009

In primary school I read a story of either the rupee or the paisa. Earlier there used to be 64 paisa in a rupee and in 1957 the Indian currency adopted the decimal system and one rupee had 100 paisa. A beggar in the story said that earlier he had to meet 64 people to collect a rupee now he will have to ask 100 people for a paisa before he can have a rupee. Compare that to the demand of a minimum of one rupee by a beggar. Most of them, in bigger towns like Delhi and Bombay generally don't ask for anything less than 5 bucks and god help you if you hand them over a small coin like 25 or 50 paisa. They may even invite you to sit with them and beg since all you can afford to give them is 50 paisa.