With the ice broken, we exchanged pleasentries and then got back to serious conversation. He gave me his word that he was not a born begger. He also added, �I am not into this because I like it. You should try to understand that I was rich enough for my ignorace of certain things to be branded eccentricity.�
This aroused my curiosity. Whoever said, curiosity killed the cat was wrong because I got my story and lived to tell it. Here is his story, in pretty much the same words he used.
About twenty years back, I was a small time clerk at the Chennai Employment Exchange. When I say small, it doesnot really mean small because every action of mine decided the future of the unemployed of the city. I know it is hard to believe when a begger says so, but that�s the truth.
Had it not been for this distant aunt of mine, I would still have been working there, probably waiting for my retirement. For reasons unknown to me and her close relatives, my name figured in her will and overnight I was a rich man. She had left me a tea-estate in the Nilgiris.
Now, I am not somebody who ever was interested in another�s wealth. You might ask me, why I beg in that case, but believe me, even today when I spread my palms for a ruppee to be dropped, my heart aches. Hence, I refused to accept her legal declaration that I should get the tea-estate. But what can a man do when the whole World gangs up against you. I was forced into accepting the inheritance, but not before I made it very clear to all those involved that I was doing so only because my aunt wanted me to.
With the riches, I also gained some self-esteem and as a result I could not make it to the Chennai Employemnt Exchange everyday. I shifted to the palatial house in Nilgiris, where my aunt wanted me to stay while I took care of her tea-estate. Life was never so easy. I had everything I wanted, except for good friends.
Many would come by, but I knew they were getting closer just so they could have a piece of my wealth. Every good word they spoke, felt like a vehicle they were using to reach out and touch my heart. Every good deed of theirs felt like an effort to make it to my will. Now, don�t think I was imagining things, keep listening.
Over a period of time, I fell out with all my close friends. They said the riches had made me arrogant and stiff-necked. But then, I did not care for I knew, friends come and go.
Even before I knew, more than a decade transpired and the royalty of money started waning. I had spent thirteen years all alone managing a tea-estate. There were people around me, the ones that plucked the tea-leaves and the ones that packed them, but we never had any intelligent conversation. Since, they considered me one rung above, it was a lonely existence.
I tried to get into wed-lock by advertising in the papers but did not get any proposals. There is something I want to tell you about this newspaper agent � he was very incoherent. When I gave him my photograph, which I wanted him to publish as a part of the matrimonial advertisement, he suggested that I don�t use the photograph. When enquired, he could not come up with a satisfactory answer.
