For Ten Rupees Only(Sudeshna Majumdar) FOR TEN RUPEES ONLY…

I recall with fondness a winter afternoon in 1994. I was on my way home from school. Unfortunately on that day my cycle was punctured and I had to drag it till Sector-4, where I had my “SWEET HOME”.

A young man approached me. To my irritation, he forced me to listen to his concocted story of having come from ‘Birmitrapur’ for an interview in Rourkela Steel Plant (RSP) and being pick-pocketed in the bus on his way down. ‘A fine silk worm’, I thought, ‘at spinning yarn’.

“So”, I interjected, “what can I do about it?”
“I wonder”, he said, “Would you lend me ten rupees?”
“Lend you?” my voice almost mocking, “and may I know the reason why?”
“Well”, he said nonchalantly, “that way I could manage a snack and a bus ride home.”
He paused and then continued, “I promise to return you the money if you will let me have your address”. I felt annoyed with myself for being unable to resist the temptation of being a good Samaritan and handed him a ‘fiver’, showed him my house and on his insistence gave him my name.

The incident was relegated to oblivion almost instantly. However that was not to be. A few months later, one evening, our doorbell rang and my mother announced that someone wanted to see me. I could very well make out from her face the fear accompanied with surprise. I came out to meet a total stranger. “I knew you wouldn’t recognize me,” he explained. He then took out a ‘ten rupee note’ from his pocket, extended it to me and said, “I have come to return the money which you had very kindly lent me when I was in dire need.” He paused for a moment and then added almost coyly, “I had come to Rourkela some months ago. I have a job now in RSP. The interview I had come for ultimately matured.”

While he was trying to hide his joy behind his shyness, I was desperately rummaging my memory for recognition. And ultimately when the penny dropped, my shame and embarrassment made my small frame look even smaller. My apparent unruffled respectability gave way to an uninhabited new found joy.

I and my mother invited him for a cup of tea and thought if I had declined the money that day, I would have deprived myself of one of life’s meaningful experiences. Indeed he had done me a great favour by humiliating himself in-front of my assumed charitable superiority. He taught me a lesson for which I would be ever grateful to him:

“It is better to Trust and be Deceived than not to Trust at all!!”

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