Heads or Tails? Go for it!
My first encounter with a one rupee coin here in Bangalore really cheered me up. The very currency I was looking at seemingly cheering me on to victory in all my pursuits.
Then I saw the two rupee coin, with its message of peace.
What a great and upbeat country! The coins in your pocket bringing peace and encouragement to all around.
Note: It has been mentioned that the one rupee coin is ideal for decision making. Instead of the somewhat cryptic “heads” or “tails” you now have a forceful “thumbs up” to let you know if you should proceed!
There was a story about an Indian election that had a picture of a bunch of bollywood stars holding up their inked middle fingers after voting. Apparently, a raised middle finger doesn’t mean the same thing there that it does herre.
The coins look fairly easy to duplicate and remarkably like video arcade tokens in the US. I wonder if that is because rupees are fairly valueless that no one would bother forging them or if they are made of a somewhat hard to come by metal?
@ Tom
I don’t know much about forging, so I can’t speak to your point Tom. It’s about 45 rupees to the $1 US dollar though.
@ Anthony
I’ve asked around to confirm and it seems that raising the middle finger means approximately the same thing in India as it does in the USA. I guess the Bollywood stars were just being a bit edgy whilst promoting voting.
The reference to the middle finger illustrates the problem in reading only part of the explanation proffered, if any are read at all. The national elections in Mumbai (where most “Bollywood” guys are) took place after the local/ municipal elections. The index fingers of the voters, including film actors, were stained in the latter before they voted in the former. So the middle finger had to be stained which was then showed as proof of having voted. It may have served other purposes but the rude meaning is not universally known or used. Still confused? Search for “election ink” and why it is used etc :-/