Personal loan
The offer seems lucrative, a lot of money for so little paperwork.
The money is handed over to you in almost an instant.
In our fast-paced lives, quick fixes are the order of the day.
Yet that seems too good to be true.
Imagine the luxuries that this money could buy. A car, a gold ring or an expensive phone to flaunt.
That is what society expects from you. How well you are positioned. Would your worth be determined by what you own?
A man once got a lot of money. Inheritance, they call it.
Indeed.his forefathers built that treasure through taxing hours of work. Penny by a penny. Every atom of that money had sweat and blood. Also, we humans are so relentlessly pursuing what we see a future that we fail to notice the beautiful present in front of us. Call it miserly or thrifty, the money came of no use to them. They live their dull lives filling up the pot of pennies to the brim. It was never enough. It never will be. Can you ever drink from a glass overflowing with water? No. That's the truth of life. We are so focused on filling our glasses to the brim that we are blinded by what we foolishly call purpose or ambition. We don’t stop to eat what we can chew and swallow. We fill our plates with all the food in the buffet because we paid for it.
There’s no free lunch, right.
So this man, let’s call him Arista.
Why was he luckless? He got his free lunch because his ancestors paid for his buffet.
His was a sea change.
It was forever sunny. He became the new money lord.
Lending out notes became his avocation and vocation.
Extricating that was a tad tough, after all after you have eaten, we always wondered if someone could foot our bill as well.
We are humans, we earn so that we can eat well. Yet we are searching for that mystery man to pay up. Why do we do it? So that we can add this penny to our pot of coins and proudly pass that on as an inheritance to many more Aristas to come.
One fine day, while Arista was adding to his jar of pennies a poor man approached him.
He looked worn out. His clothes needed mending. Clearly, he didn’t even have a jar, to begin with.
One look at him and Arista knew why he was there.
There was no way he could repay the money he would borrow.
Even before a word left his lips, Arista dismissed him.
He wasn’t as kind as the people on the phone who gave cards and cash for free. He was a calculative man.
The man was Vidhi. His daughter was sick. He needed the money desperately to save her life. All his life savings were spent on her treatment. With no other option, he had approached Arista who so much as didn’t give him the attention a fly deserved when it hovered around sweets.
A plan had to be executed. His daughter was important to him. She was the apple of his eye. He wasn’t going to give her up without a fight. If he couldn’t steer life, who could.
On a warm afternoon, Arista was engaged in his favorite activity, counting money.
A wiry shadow crept up to him, gagged him. Picked up the money and started to run. Ill luck wasn’t letting fate get Away. He ran after him. But fate surpasses everything. Arista fell to his face and the world was dark.
When he opened his eyes, he was in a hospital.
He had a dull ache from the stitches. His mouth was dry. Words wouldn’t escape his dry lips.
Despite his condition, he was worried if Vidhi got away.
He summoned his house help.
The answer they gave him wasn’t pleasant.
Infuriated, he heaved himself out of bed. Walked in slow, heavy steps. His eyes shone with ire.
What he saw next froze his foot.
Vidhi was there at the hospital.
Arista lunged towards him with murderous rage. But something stopped him.
A frail child nearly reduced to bones stuck to a rusty wheelchair.
The sight was heart-wrenching. The child was motionless. Eyes were sad and sucked into the socket. Vidhi’s daughter.
When life didn’t give you free lunch, you try to take it. But life reminds you that it’s not yours and makes sure that you cough up the price.
What Vidhi did next was astonishing.
He carefully placed some notes on the chair, beckoning.
Whether he said that he had enough and that his glass was overflowing or whether he said that if the fish has died, no amount of water will revive it or whether he thanked Arista is still a mystery.
What was the point of money lending when the human touch was lost. To forgive Vidhi or sympathize with him or pounce on him for the theft? What virtue was he to pick? He was bumfuzzled. He wasn’t called Samarthya. He was Arista. Whatever he picked over fate would definitely result in Ill luck.
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