Money
is single sided sword.
We
nurture, save, grow and double it with lots of care- all on the blunt side. What
if we lend our money to a friend, a housemaid or a relative? The moment we loan
it out, we do it with the sharp side, and it kills that relationship forever. We
all know what is definitely bound to happen but we still loan out money. Because
we cannot say NO.
Sometimes
it is okay to say NO. Like you know your maid servant has a husband and son who
earns enough, and she is also going to few other houses, which means she is
earning enough. She is definitely not starving. So when she comes to you asking
for a ten thousand rupees for some reason that sounds lame, do not give it. It
is easy to write this but it is very very difficult to say that on her face. Like
me. I gave a pretty decent amount to my maid eight months ago when I sent her
away because my son started preschool, and now she does not answer my calls. Well she
answered once and talked like I stole something from her house. Well let’s not
discuss that.
This
is how shit happens. And when it does, it breaks out loose and is all over the
place. My better half had warned me against this loan, many
times before I did it, and now has washed his hands clean of it. He reminds me
of getting the money back, like a pending assignment due from my side, but has
put his foot down when I asked his help to do it. Well I cannot blame him, it
is completely on me, and I am pretty sure I am not getting it back. However it
is not easy for me to get in terms with the truth, but I continue to message
and call this woman, who claims that she is out of work to pay me back.
Before
judging me, it is only fair for me to have the benefit of doubt. This maid was
basically a good person. She was not the evil, cunning types, and looked after
my son for a year at home. My son was also okay with her, and never cried when
I went to office, which suggested that she did take good care of him. I had
checked in on him hundreds of times without informing prior, and have never
found him crying or ignored. I had informed my neighbors to check in on him and
they never complained. I did not install a camera at home because I would not
have a cctcv behind my workstation with my boss looking at it all the time. I
still bathed and fed my son at all times during the day, my work being a stone’s
throw from home. This is the reason why I gave her that money. She did take
care of my son, and did not harm on him even once even though it was for a few
hours. After a year when she asked me for that money, of course she was taking
advantage of my weakest point, but I believed that despite the regular pay we
gave her, she could have mishandled her job in frightening ways. That is not
logic, it is sentiments which played the lead and I am paying for it now.
There
is no room for sentiments in this world. Like if you sit and self-pity nobody
consoles you because the world is competitive. If you pity yourself, others
pity you more than you do. When was the last time someone gave you a push and
said ‘I know you can do it’?
I
had once given off the sari I wore at my wedding reception to the daughter of
my mother’s maid. That maid also took a massive loan from my mother for the
same purpose which still remains a loan. My mother called to remind her about
the loan but she was yelled at and even cursed. I do not regret giving off my
saree because I came to know it was worn by her on her wedding day. This saree
was not something I dint want. I would never have worn it for any occasion after
that, but it had a sentimental value attached to it. There is no selfless good
deed, but I cannot think of myself as selfish for any reason by giving away
that saree to a bunch of thankless people.
I
now think of that loan I gave my maid, as an act of charity. I gave it to her
succumbing to my weakness, completely aware on a sub conscious level that I am not going to get it back.
And it was a pretty decent amount which I could use. Talking of charity, most
of us give away what we don’t need and call it charity. Is that really it? If
we wanted to help the less privileged we should give them what they need, and
not what we don’t need. Right?
Take for example this woman, who paid for a cheap tee shirt online, which did not satisfy her expectations. Look at how she has commented on it. Is it arrogance or do we have some other word for the last line of her comment?
There
is no hard and fast rule that can tell you who is reliable and who will return
your loan. Why do people pay their EMI’s to the bank promptly and not to the
person they took money from which has no written record? If we have an answer
to that may be it will help us decide in future.
I
do not have an answer to that yet. Do you?