It's a five ruppees coin I have just received from the canteen person, in return as change. And this is going to be the subject of my writing for a few minutes now. I have no idea what I am going to say about a coin or the other face of this coin. It's just a piece of metal as far as I am concerned. I left all the cents and euro cents in my mother's steel almerah at home, thinking them as useless for some time now. Coins lose their meanings when you move from one part of the world to another. Some can be converted at a few places into the relevant ones but some can not. And in the conversion you lose some money too. But something is better than having nothing. So you go to the counter and get some of the local coins to buy a cup of coffee or something and kill some time at the airport.

This five ruppees coin which I am still twiddling with my fingers is thicker than the other coins in India and shorter in diameter than a one or two ruppees coins. The usual three-headed bearded tigers on one side and five ruppees engraved on the other side. Which side should I write about. The tigers have a history and so do the letters on the other side. The tigers or lions that look to all different sides are actually four in the place where they have been adopted from - the ancient emperor Asoka's monuments in Sarnath, India. The hidden lion looks to the other side of the pillar there and the other three can be seen from one side. In fact you could only see three lions from any side if you stood in front of that pillar. They symbolise courage, power and confidence. There are also other animals at the abacus on which these lions sit, like elephant, bull and horse.

I am sure they all mean something when they stand there. But this coin here has something inscribed below the lions, written in Hindi -the Indian language. The inscription, if translated into English means - 'Truth Alone Prevails'. It's been taken from the Mandukya Upanishad, the concluding book in the Vedas.

The other thing on this piece of metal is the Hindi name of India on one side 'Bharat' - after the ancient emporer Bharat. This emperor apparently won most of the known world in that time and the region covering then current India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afganistan and more - called Bharatvarsha. Therefore, India is Bharat too. And so inscribed on this coin. On the middle it says five rupees. Some creeper leaves to fill and adorn the remaining real estate on that side and the year of minting, 1999.

The creeper shows lotus flowers on both side. I have never really seen lotuses in ponds. Strange. I have seen many types of flowers, but not lotus. I did see some in Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania last year, but seeing something in a museum or a park is not exactly seeing it. You see it as something that belongs somewhere else. No right to touch or feel. Just a piece of information and a two dimensional beauty you must read about and appreciate along with all the other onlookers waiting for you to finish and move on. It's not really seeing.

Back to this coin. It's thicker as I mentioned earlier, apparently for the reason that the illiterate Indian people can feel the coin and know its value by thickness and size instead of having to read it. A five rupees coin has little value nowadays. People deal in hundreds easily here. Rupee has lost a lot of value lately. So small amounts are still smaller. So this coin that I now have by the side on this laptop has little value. To me it's just a collectible. I will keep it in my leather bag and toss it once in a while to know my future. Heads, the good side, tails the bad side. For example heads if I will get married this year, tails if not. And I feel a sacred tug in my heart when it says 'yes'. In this moment it's enough to make me feel good about life. So desperately waiting to be married, even a five rupee coin, just a face of it can make me feel good. I even like the feel of these lion heads. The coin after this important toss sits on my thigh. The metal piece. With some value. You could make a little cart with four of these and a matchbox, this coin has grooved edge like a wheel.

Wonder why that would be. Then I wonder about something else. It's hard to keep myself undistracted these days. My mother has had an emotional fit again. I was complaining about her bluffs. She creates a lot of fluff around her children to other people. She brags about them and even makes lies to impress the poor struggling people that live around her house in the native town. Those people who wish to get even a fraction of the wealth that she now has. She brags to them about how prosperous her kids are and how well they are doing. The truth is otherwise. I am struggling. My brothers younger to me are struggling for employment. But she goes on boasting and making lies about us all. She cooks a lot to cover her insecurities about us. She shows off something she doesn't really have. It's not just her. It's almost the whole entire middle class in the native town. Money is more shown off to others than you actually possess.

It's something about these emblems and mottos that make me complain. 'Truth Alone Must Prevail'. But I see rampant lies. White, black and in all colours and everywhere. It's true that truth alone prevails but it's not because we all believe in truth. It's because truth prevails despite what we believe. Under the surface behind our faces, underneath all the lies we make, truth prevails. Runs deep and gnaws at our hearts. Makes me sick and irritated. And I speak up and most often in an attempt to roll back the lies that have already been said. There is something sacred about this coin like I said. I either have it here or I don't. There is no in between truth to it. So when I hear a lie about me, I complain. But mothers have a way of winning both sides of a toss. When they are in the dock they make it emotional and walk away. When they are right, they teach you and preach you a lesson you hate to hear the millionth time again. So she walked out and I am back pondering over this five rupees coin. So back to money and so to this coin. Which is a rather new inclusion to the set of coins in Indian currency. When I was small I only knew one ruppee, fifty paisas, a quarter and five paisas. Then came the two ruppees coin with a hexagonal shape that was almost a circle. It was a wee bit bigger in size than the one rupee coin. The five paisas coins at about the same time, dwindled and disappeared from society like endangered and then extinct bird species. I have hardly seen a quarter or fifty paisas coin in my two and a half months stay here. But I have seen ones twos and fives. I will keep this one back in my leather bag and take it out when I need to toss. For now I will go have dinner and think some more in tidbits. A motley of thoughts that reach no particular point. Thinking because I have an apparatus that works all day when I am awake. So I will eat and think and then write if I am not distracted.

I went to the kitchen and shoved two chapatis and some rice into my mouth in a hurry. Then felt guilty about having upset mother so. I washed the dish and took out her share of dinner and coaxed her into eating it. I hate to make her cry. I don't like it when her emotional outburst turns into a cascade of historical points where she travels mentally and verbally in her unstoppable pity party. No it will be harsh to call it a pity party. Nobody really joins her. We all hate to see her upset. After all she is just making lies. And asking us to not mess with her doing so. And I make lies too. Wherever I wish too. Harmless lies. And then Truth is never Alone really. It often, very often exists in multiplicity. Many faces of the same Truth. Depends on which side you look at. For me, right now as I look at this coin, I can hide the side that says 'Truth Alone Prevails'. Think nothing about it. It doesn't exist as far as I am concerned. To me, what it important is what I see. The five rupees, 1999 coin. For some time now I will try not to be a self-righteous idealist. I am a liar too. Often without even knowing. Because I don't always 'know' the Truth of a thing. But I am quick to give my opinion on anything. So granted. I should stop judging her for her lies. Truth will prevail despite me, despite her.

I read in a book a chapter on how the human brain thinks its thoughts. Why we speak or write a certain sentence and don't do all the zillion other possible sentences that could have been said or written at a given moment. There is hypothetically a fight for survival of the fittest among all the thoughts that are proposed at one fraction of a moment our brain thinks. Then the fittest among them gets an outlet in the form of words. I would wonder what the criteria are for selecting the fittest. So there are zillions of other pieces of writing that just got nipped in the bud when you are reading this. There is no known way to judge if this one is the best possible. This one though is definitely the fittest that could survive - every sentence above. Strong and muscular I would imagine in some way.

I am still thinking about that coin in the back of my head. I am sort of forcing myself to think some more about it. Just a thought. How many hands has it been in before it reached in mine? They must have some statistics somewhere -- some meagerly funded or leisure research on "how many persons a coin of certain age must travel to" on the average. It will make a fun piece of the bottom right corner of the Sunday Times review. I don't like counting currency notes. They have a certain peculiar smell that smells like a million types of body odours all rubbed into one. I try to smell this coin - it's a metallic feel with some oldness and dampness thrown in. It's been places. But it's better than a five rupee note. Much better. Most of the one rupee ones are biased. You can't depend on them for a fair toss. I get a straight seven or eight heads out of ten tosses with a one rupee coin. But with this one. I can trust for a fifty-fifty chance for truth. And that's enough to know about the future. Good enough, if you knew absolutely nothing before you tossed.