Today was Pongal and I’m spending it with the family after 3 years. Mom had made the usual Paayasam, Vadai & Pongal and they were good. There were a lot of special programs aired on all the television channels. I’ve completely stopped watching T.V. a long time back and so it was an ordinary day for me other than the feast that Mom had prepared. I went to my aunt’s in the evening and we went to a nearby temple (Yes, I am a good guy!).
It was about 9 when I started for my home. It was a nice night for a walk and I decided to take the local train as it’d entail some walking. And Lord knows I need to walk if I were to compensate for all that my Mom’s been feeding me. I think she’s enrolled in a Who-can-make-her-son-fat-really-fast? contest and I’d wager she’s blowing the competition out of water. I don’t usually think about this a lot but for some reason this was all I could think of tonight. I reached the train station and naturally my eyes went towards the weighing machine that was installed there.
So I raid my wallet for 1 Rupee coins to check my weight. The machine blinked all its lights on and off as if it was screaming from the pain caused by the excess weight and finally spat out not one but two cards. Now I’m not going to give any numbers but I’ll say that one of the cards had a number which was too good to be true and the other had a number which was 10 kilos greater. I realized that the machine was at fault and didn’t throw someone their card earlier and start looking for another coin but couldn’t find any.
As I started walking to the end of the station so I can get in the first carriage of the train, cursing my lack of 1 Rupee coins and somehow trying to convince myself that card # 1 was mine, this guy came up to me and started talking. He was in his late twenties or early thirties and was not from here as he started the conversation in English. He was wearing a monkey cap and a sweater which seemed odd to me as it was not cold. He said “Sir, I’m from Andhra. My friend said he’d get me a nice job here for 15,000 rupees but cheated me and ran away with all my belongings. My best friend, sir!”
I knew what was coming next. “I know nobody in Chennai sir. Somebody bought me some food. The train ticket to go back home is about 170 rupees and I’ve 70 rupees. I need only 100 rupees. I’ll not eat anything on the way. I just need some help to get back. If you give me your phone #, I’ll arrange to pay you back when I get back.” I also learned that he had a Post Graduate degree from Osmania university. He also showed me his PAN card which seemed pretty legit.
Now this is not the first time someone has walked up to me and asked for money like this. And I don’t have the smarts to tell when someone’s lying to my face. The odds of this being a con was great. But on the off chance that this was real, I couldn’t just walk away without helping this guy out. He’s all alone, without money and already regretting his decision to have been careless. To ask help from people who’re passing by must be really hard and embarrassing. It must have been eating him alive. I was not going to leave him like that.
I pulled 2 100 rupee notes from my wallet and gave it to him. He started crying and said “Sir, please don’t think I’m cheating.” I asked him to stop crying and said “It does not matter if you are. Just be careful going forward. You can go back home with this and eat something on the way.” He offered to do Puja in my name (apparently his Dad is a priest in some temple) and asked for my name but I didn’t give it to him. I just said “I wish you all the best for finding a job!” and boarded the train which had arrived by then.
In all probability, it was a con. I’ve given up on people being honest a long time back. But that is never going to stop me from doing something like that. If it was legit I did a good thing. If it wasn’t legit it doesn’t matter.
The thing is, I’ll never know either way!
