THE COIN COLLECTORS.

RAJU
The hit movie was playing to full houses all over our small town. The cash registers were jingling with money. The songs were always accompanied with the disco lighting on the side of the faded white screen. Probably, years of cobwebs had gathered on the screen to give the hue. Each song elicited a shower of coins and the whistling jeering crowds would dance in the aisle. Raju was a very happy man. This movie meant a lot to him,especially during the festive time. He would buy his grumbling wife and runny nosed kids some shiny clothes. He felt relieved. Raju's pockets were full with loose change by the end of the show. He had to, unwillingly partake a small share for the usher. He was a sweeper in the theatre and was grinning from ear to ear. When a curious somebody asked him the plot of the movie, he replied casually shuffling the beedi in his mouth, he had hardly seen the movie! He was busy collecting coins.
SANJU
The procession was a long one with everyone dressed in their finest white linen clothes. A great industrialist had expired and along with his dead body rode his entourage of well wishers and family. Sanju lived in a slum along side this posh road full of sky scrapers. A death in this locality meant good news for him. He would wear his only pair of white faded clothes and accompany the funeral procession as a concerned mourner. Nobody had time to stare at him. As the relatives marched, the prodigal son leading the procession was spraying the path with flowers and coins which he had carried in a big plastic bag. Sanju was a busy man, crouching all along the road collecting coins for himself and his poor family.
MANJU
Manju was a small girl outside our town temple who used to sell small flower beads kept in a small wicker basket for our town ladies to adorn their henna coloured hair. The flower beads used to cost 5 rupees each and by the end of the day, her small cloth purse would jingle jangle wih the coins. She worked hard and was tired by the time she reached home. Her mother had passed away after her birth and her father along with her little brother used to stay in her small shanty of a house. The coin purse used to be promptly snatched by her father who would buy booze to fulfill his addiction. Her beatings were inversely proportional to the amount of coins. A new day would see her perched outside the temple ready with her basket and empty, once coin filled purse.

The coin collectors would collect and count coins, all through out their lives.
The jingle in their pockets,music for their ears, propelled their hard lives.