Too many crooks

:(Sukumaran, mattress. Kannan)

I am no sucker. Though many feel I am one.  I have a heart for the poor and when any beggar says, “I did not have a meal today,” he stands a good chance to get a Rs. 10 note from me.

            First the knee treatment: I paid Sukumaran 10 k for 12 herbal dressings – we came to 8 dressings before the man shunted me out by doing a disappearing act. My knees were definitely getting better under his watchful eyes but for some reason he did not take my calls and I also lost interest. He has done me a lot of favours in the past and so I did not feel overtly disappointed. But one part of the mind screamed: This is not fair. I am being taken for a ride. So this treatment came to an abrupt end in the first week of October with the knees still needing expert care. I thought to myself: let me earn enough and try Sparcc. That would mean exhausting every possible treatment route. But at least they are in some shape for daily walks to the beach and his treatment worked and did me some good.  I still believe Sukumaran is extremely gifted healer but he lacks consistency to see it through. But I will have no more patience for this attitude.

            Straw mattress episode: It was the middle of October when this happened:

            I work from a desktop from a window of the drawing room for a view of the balcony and the main thoroughfare where the buses motor past in fourth gear. Seventh Avenue is a broad road – must be 80 feet – and the traffic accelerates with new found freedom.  I saw a family take shelter in the trees lining my side of the road. Most of the travelling lot like traders or gas delivery boys use the empty pavements and tree cover as a place for lunch as they unwrap the boxes. No one minds it a bit for the poor too must survive.
            I saw a family – two men and women – rest for lunch. I saw they were selling straw mattresses and plastic chairs. I went down and showed interest in the mattress. A woman who appeared for a tribal lineage with her saree in gaudy trinkets attended to me. She said, “One mattress for Rs. 500.”

            I said, “Rs 350” without a clue as to the cost

            She then found me an easy goat and went for the kill, “We carry this on the road, there is little money for us. I will give you two mattresses for Rs. 700.”

            I am bachelor with no need for a second mattress but she kept persuading and importuning and fell for it. I paid the money and when Thangam came the next morning I showed them. She said,” This is not worth more than Rs. 150 apiece,” which meant that I paid over the double the market rate. It does your morale no good that a tribal woman sold you a dummy. What was sad was even as I was paying Rs. 700 I asked her, “Do you have enough margin on this or is it a distress sale?” My lesson from this incident was “never buy a good without knowing its market price” and “don’t be a saint” – for everyone has it tough for them. Suddenly these two mattresses felt like sore eyes and I told Thangam, “Please take one of them, each time I see them it reminds me of my foolishness.”

            Monkey business this: Losing Rs. 700 on a worthless purchase happens to the best of us but it takes a special fool for fall for this. There was a Facebook character who is a small time film director, I invited him home and this tale was sadder than mine. Kannan came to my house around the same time, say mid-October.  He told me of this grim tale,” My wife divorced me 14 years back. I was a millionaire running ten businesses but the divorce got me so depressed that I lost one entire decade. That brought me to the roads; I lost my influence in the film world, my enterprises crashed with a lot of help from ungrateful friends. I had reached a point of suicide. I used to love my little daughter whose custody too I lost.”

            That tale got him a meal from me as I entertained him at Vishranti. Then a week later, he calls, “Sathya, I am having typhoid. I have no money at all. I am dying.”  I said,” I can spare you Rs. 500,” he immediately jumped on the offer, came to my place for the dough.

            Next week, he comes to my house and I tell him about my communication workshop. Kannan says: I know friends all over. I can easily get you 3-4 students with just a couple of phone calls. Which of course makes me happy! I have been on the road selling this monster for a month with only Prithvi’s son and Ram’s employee to show for those selling efforts.

            Kannan sucks me in by being extremely useful. He make a flower pot of an unused plastic container in the kitchen for a plant that I got visiting the real estate exhibition, he gives his dumb phone in exchange to mine but this comes with a memory card that came in handy in recording the Psychotherapy talks. 

Each time Kannan comes, I lose money. I did not see the pattern until it happened every single time.

He looks at my Samsung galaxy 3 smartphone that fails to boot saying, “This is a software problem and I will have it repaired for Rs. 500.” I give that money and couple of days later he comes to my place and says, “Actually the repair is Rs. 850 and do you want to still repair it.” I answer by doling out another Rs. 500. Later in the day he says, “The screen has some problem and it will cost you another Rs. 400 and so the total repair is Rs. 1450, “and I say foolishly, “Go ahead, “and give another Rs. 500. There is a lesson hidden here: next time attend to all mobile repairs or similar errands yourself, don’t entrust it to others. Don’t entrust anyone to purchase for you even if it is technical things like an electric switch or RCP or some such nonsense.

            Kannan attends my third class of the WORKSHOP and made a video recording with my digital camera. They revealed so many things about me: I speak too fast for one, a bit loud too. I thanked him for these priceless lessons before Kannan pulled another fast one, “My friend is a ADIDAS dealer and he is closing down. He is selling sneakers at cost price Rs. 750 which the market sells for Rs. 2500.”

            I fall for his bait as I dole out Rs. 1000. Next visit he says, “There is one model for Rs. 1750 and I have booked them for you,” which meant another Rs. 1000 is slipped into this man’s hands.

            One part of mind felt that this guy is robbing me blind. I reasoned thus: “A new smartphone will cost at least 10 k and if I can repair my Samsung for 1.5 k and if it were to last me even 6 months at least I am spared of those expenses now. On Adidas I knew that their range starts from 3k so if someone promises me a 4 k shoes for 2 k , it is a very smart purchase.”

            Kannan keeps promising, “Sathya, I have told all my friends about your WORKSHOP. One fellow is the Head of Visual Communicaton in Loyola. I will organize a talk for you. He will assemble all the students in the hall, you can make a sales pitch of the course content and hundreds of students will enroll.”

            By now I realize this man is just hot air and I was being ripped off – no repair of the Smartphone and no Addidas. I realize that this man has sucked me dry of Rs. 4, 700 in stages with an expert cheating streak. And no seminar sales pitch at Loyola!

            I was telling Thangam, “Already I am in bad shape and I allow a person to rob me in broad daylight. I now realize the maxim that money and fools are so parted.”

            She said, “You have a kind heart and besides you are such a recluse that you were just not equipped to handle such tricksters. It is a lesson for you to be on guard and not be carried away by other’s sob stories.”

            I have lived alone for a decade and no one has touched me this badly. I am sucker alright but I never lost on financial transaction. Of course I have had so many clients who commissioned me to work on their projects and not pay me which is an occupational hazard. But no one has tricked me like that tribal woman on straw mattresses and this failed film director. I said maybe I am getting softer with MINDFULNESS and so let me a little hard-skinned when anyone serves a sob story.  I consoled myself saying: If I get one EXTRA student for my WORKSHOP it would compensate for this patented foolishness. As for the lesson, it’s priceless and now no beggar on the streets gets that 10 rupee note when entreating on his starvation.