Thiruvananthapuram: For tens of thousands of college students in Kerala who stay in hostels across the state, Friday would normally have been a happy day, given that a long weekend beckoned them.
The second Saturdays of each month are a holiday for educational institutions, which usually have a six-day work week.
This Friday, they have been left to wonder how they will reach home with precious little small-denomination notes in their wallets.
Rs500 and Rs1,000 notes in India were scrapped by the government after a dramatic announcement on November 8 by prime minister Narendra Modi. He said the move was to curb black money, prevent the use of counterfeit currency and to deny terror and drug outfits free availability of funds.
Three days after the announcement, the common man in Kerala, as elsewhere in India, has been left to spend long hours in the queues at banks, hoping to exchange at least the minimum allowed amount of Rs4,000 (Dh218) in old currency and get fresh notes.
Most of those in the queue end up disappointed because individual banks get only a limited amount of freshly printed currency, which is woefully insufficient to go around for the multitudes thronging bank branches.
Trade and commercial establishments have been the hardest-hit, with customers keeping away because they do not have cash in their wallets, and businesses are unable to provide change to those who have money and want to shop.
From provision stores to fish markets, and buses to autorickshaws, all product and service sectors have been affected owing to the currency crunch.
Disillusioned by the situation, many have taken to social media to express their angst, but some are seeing the lighter side of things.
One social media visual showed the queues in front of a liquor outlet and a bank getting intertwined, and a liquor buyer ending up at the bank counter and asking for his favourite brand of whisky.
Another post said, “Modi promised to bring change. Now the whole nation is left in a mad scramble for change”.
