“He’s gotta be a scammer” is the first thought that crosses most human minds when they process “I lost all my money and luggage this morning at the railway station, please give me the money to buy the return tickets to my home town.” and mine was not entirely different. However, what transpired afterwards probably was a bit uncommon.
An about 30 year old guy with his mother (as told by him) and two kids caught me the other day when I was walking back to the pavilion (home). Initially, I bombarded him with a barrage of questions which he answered consistently and confidently. I was clear in my mind that unless I can rule him out based on some lie/inconsistency, I wanna give him the benefit of the doubt and thereby, the money. Still, to be sure that I aint missing something, I called up Renju. Her advice (and that of another friend Vishnu later) was that there are many such people going around, they can’t be trusted so easily and if I am hell bent of helping them, I should get them tickets as opposed to money.
This is much easier said than done though because in order to get them tickets (of the same day, 10: 30 pm), I would have to go to the railway station (Majestic) which is a fair way away from where these people bumped into me. But then I realized that this is a scenario that many of my friends have encountered many times and it wouldn’t be a waste if I can take this opportunity and get to the bottom of this issue. So, I took a bus with all of them to the railway station.
In the mean time, I had asked Renju to verify, on the net, the details this guy had given about the place he comes from (Nanded district, Maharashtra), the train names and timings, etc. To my pleasant surprise, they were all correct. On the railway station, we had to stand in a dauntingly long queue before getting our hands on the (general class) tickets. After giving them some fruits, money, etc. for the journey ahead, I was on my way back, almost! Actually, I was still not cent percent convinced about them being genuine so stealthily followed them to check if they were chucking the railway station with the money. They weren’t. They were headed towards the right platform.
They had been honest all the way and may be, I had been paranoid all the way. I was so preoccupied with ascertaining their genuineness that I even searched the solitary hand bag they had (as if my ceaseless interrogation wasn’t enough). That man kept pleading me to trust him but I didn’t. As it turns out, he was an honest, hardworking farmer from a small town and I tore his self-respect apart with my over-suspicious treatment of him.
One would have thought I would be mighty proud while returning home, having aided a needy stranger. Well, I was. But I felt equally guilty. But then I thought that when you are preconditioned to believe that the default state you should associate with every new person is “untrustworthy”, my suspicion of him is barely surprising. What was important is that I didn’t let my suspicion come in the way of assisting him. That’s what I appeal to everyone reading this. If you happen to come across some one like this, don’t scoff him off thinking that he is a cheat. He may well be one. He may not be. You may choose to help him. You may not (if you don’t have the money). But what you shouldn’t do is to start with the premise “He’s gotta be a scammer”.
Filed under: General Musings | Tagged: assumptions, beggar, genuine, scammer
