Cash that’s one of a kind

Two mini Polos in lieu of Rs 4 at Good Luck, Bandra

Countries may distinguish themselves from each other with emblems, currency and flags but it's the little, mundane peculiarities that truly stay with us. A classic but often overlooked example of this is being handed candy instead of cash, when you make a transaction and are owed a balance by the cashier who doesn't seem to have sufficient change. And we've all been there at some point in our lives - irritated, shocked, amused, or unbothered when it first happened.

Kopiko candy is lieu of '2 at a toll on the Bangalore-Mysore highway, submitted by Minu Chawla

Sheena Maria Piedade, a Pune-based artist, writer and mindfulness-facilitator, spent 2014 travelling across India and abroad. It was then that she noticed how widespread the practice was, and how specific it was to India. "In the beginning, it felt like an annoying imposition and frustrated me - I didn't want sweets and you can't, after all, pay with candy at the next establishment. Then I started to look forward to it," she says.

So, every time she received candy instead of coins, she began to document the phenomena online. Piedade would upload photographs on a microblog dedicated to the project, and eventually made it participatory; she invited her readers to share images when they had the same experience, too. She ended up receiving submissions from all corners of the country including Mumbai, Mysore, Jaipur and Delhi. This custom, she highlights, isn't restricted to only stores but is also seen at pharmacies and toll plazas.

"Throughout my practise, I have always had participatory projects as I mainly explore social and cultural phenomena that most others can relate to. Those who have submitted have shared how much joy they experienced when they received candy after they learned about the project," Piedade shares. Now, after seven years, she is reopening submissions for the project again and hopes to compile them into a photo zine later this year. She states that the zine will include, "candid images of the ‘change' received juxtaposed against recreated studio-style images of the submissions."

The project, she asserts, explores our relationship with consumerism, the value of money - every image offers a visual representation of its worth - and the unspoken agreement of accepting confectionery for currency when the value of the items are clearly not the same for both parties.

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