Greentext · 4 minThe Campa Tin

>be me, 10 years

>kurnool, 1997, summer holidays

>in our lane the money is not money

>the money is bottle caps

>cool drink caps, the tin ones with the frill

>you put them on the road and flatten them with a stone

>you make a hole with a nail

>and you put them on a string like a mala

>everybody has a mala

>the rates are fixed, nobody wrote them, everybody knows

>thums up one cap

>limca one cap

>gold spot two, because the shops are not keeping it much

>ten caps, one round on raju's hero cycle till the water tank

>twenty caps, one cricket card

>fifty caps, you can bat first

>and then there is campa cola

>campa cola is gone

>no shop has it for years

>coke and pepsi came and campa went

>so one campa cap is twenty caps

>one campa cap is one full round on the cycle plus one cricket card

>in the whole lane there are maybe eight campa caps

>i have three

>i keep them in my pocket, not on the mala

>venu has two, he wears them on a separate thread on his neck

>venu is the richest

>summer, we go to ammamma's house in the old town for one week

>ammamma lives alone since tatayya died

>the house has a front room that used to be a shop

>tatayya's soda shop

>the counter is still there, the shelf, the glass bottle rack

>an old bottle opener tied to the counter with a jute string

>one afternoon ammamma says "get the big tin from the loft"

>"the dalda tin, the one with the red lid"

>i climb the steel almirah

>i pull the tin

>it is very heavy

>it makes a sound like a hundred bangles

>i bring it down and open the lid

>caps

>bottle caps

>the whole tin, up to the top

>i put my hand in

>i take one out

>red, white letters

>campa cola

>i take another

>campa cola

>another

>campa

>campa

>campa

>i pour it on the floor

>ammamma is cutting beans and looking at me

>"your tatayya" she says

>"he could not throw anything"

>"every bottle he opened, he kept the cap"

>"for the children, he said, they play"

>"then the children grew up"

>i count

>it takes me the whole afternoon

>three hundred and eighty one campa caps

>at twenty caps each

>i cannot even do the multiplication

>it is more than the whole lane

>it is more than the whole town

>"can i take" i ask

>"take" she says

>"what will i do with them"

>i go back to kurnool on the bus with the dalda tin on my lap

>the conductor asks what is inside

>i say "money"

>he laughs

>first day back i am a king

>i buy raju's cycle for the whole week, sixty campa

>i buy venu's best cricket cards

>i buy every top in the lane, even the one with the steel nail

>i buy the batting first for all of june

>i give campa caps to small boys for nothing, like a minister

>by the second day every boy in the lane has campa caps

>by the third day raju is saying "campa is one cap"

>"one only"

>"what is special, everybody has it"

>venu throws his neck thread in the drain

>by the fourth day nobody wants caps at all

>not campa, not thums up, nothing

>venu's anna says caps are for babies

>everybody starts collecting matchbox labels

>in four days i finished the bottle cap money of the whole lane

>i finished it with my own hand

>i sit on our step with the dalda tin

>there are maybe one hundred caps still inside

>and three hundred campa caps lying all over the lane

>in drains, under scooters, in the sand

>nobody picks them

>that evening i do something i do not understand

>i take the tin

>and i go from house to house

>"give back the campa caps"

>"you do not want them anyway"

>the boys laugh at me

>they give

>they give them like they are giving rubbish

>some i pick from the drain myself with a stick

>by night i have three hundred and twelve

>sixty nine are lost

>in august we go to ammamma's house again

>i put the dalda tin back on the loft

>ammamma does not ask why

>she says "they did not like it"

>i say "they liked it too much"

>she does not understand

>i do not explain

>the old shop room was sold in 2004

>the counter, the shelf, the bottle rack all went with it

>the opener on the jute string also went

>the dalda tin came to my house in hyderabad

>it is on top of my fridge

>sometimes my daughter asks what is inside

>i say "money"

>she shakes it

>it sounds like a hundred bangles