Luck by resilience – based on a true story.

CC-by-sa PlaneMad/Wikimedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ennore_creek#/media/File:Ennore_Creek_sunset.jpg

To appreciate what I'm about to tell you, imagine this for a moment.

You're trapped in a long, dark tunnel with broken glass flooring and sharp metal barb walls. What do you do?

You fumble, you stumble. The more you try, the more you get hurt. You gash your face,break a bone. You bleed and cry as you crave the bright world outside. Then at a point you quit trying and just hope someone will shine a light on. Life then becomes an endless resignation waiting for salvation.

Like it did for my uncle Thambi.

A gentle, sweet fellow, Uncle Thambi spent all his life terrorized by his father,a powerful, ill-tempered man.My uncle stammered and often peed in his trousers at his father’s sight. He made no friends. Understandable, for he took minutes to complete even one word. He scraped through school and got a typist's job thanks to his father's influence. I'm sure you all know someone like Thambi, they're easy to spot.

Inside the tunnel of life, silence became his saviour. He bothered no one and never spoke back. He stayed at the same post for twenty years and raised a bright son and a retarded daughter. Unfortunately, his one investment from two decades of savings bombed. It was a piece of land submerged in the back waters of Ennore, off Chennai, south India. Sold to gullible folks like him.Uncle Thambi could never enjoy it unless he was reborn a fish. Granduncle berated his duffer son even on the deathbed.

I must confess I never looked forward to visiting Thambi uncle, for there was nothing to look forward to. Not even a sofa to sit on, and not even a meaningful conversation with that irritable stammer of his. My visits became scarcer and his life remained stuck in that long dark tunnel until he retired.

Then it got worse.

His married boy of thirty came down with liver cancer. They battled for three years, emptied their savings and finally sold their only house. They still couldn't save him. He left behind a widow and a baby girl. Uncle Thambi then completely went out of touch. I settled for the convenient reason: 'No news is good news.'

Last year, at a wedding I saw folks crowded around a well-fed, well- dressed man. He was wearing golden frames, bracelets, rings and a thick neck chain. I couldn't believe my eyes when Thambi uncle looked at me and waved me over.

He hugged me and rattled off.  'See how God has showered his grace upon your uncle. I'm tension free. I married off my daughter in law, and bought two shops on the mall and got a full time attendant for my girl. And we live in an apartment overlooking the sea. ACs even in the bathrooms. And now these fellows want me to contestlocal elections.'

'How did the miracle happen, uncle?' I asked, in wonder.

He put a friendly arm over my shoulder. 'You remember that submerged land in Ennore? L&T bought it all and reclaimed it for their port project. I got six crores (sixty million). Six crores! See how luck changes in life?'

I remained in a daze as Thambi uncle spoke non-stop. Then it hit me:his stammer was gone. I realized he no longer feared anything. Here was a brave man who had put up with all of life's beatings and staked everything for his family. Hewas not the duffer his father had written off; he was now the richest and most powerful among my relatives.

Tears streamed down my cheeks. In joy, for the good times in his life;in gratitude that light had finally shone at the end of his dark tunnel.Uncle Thambi's storyhas made me a stronger human being by givingme renewed hope in life, in myself.

Even the darkest night dies with a crack of dawn.

Avik Davar

I have known my bean-counter friend Rambo for thirty-five years.

We shared a flat in our first job. Life walked us on different paths, but Rambo is a fine guy who’s always stayed in touch. He calls me out of the blue, ‘What’s up, D?’  surprises me on birthdays, or lands up from Australia just to say ‘hello’. People like him make us feel wanted, blessed in life.

Lately, whenever he’s visited by, we've ended up talking life and what’s left of it. This time, Rambo turned up looking years younger. He had dyed his balding hair, and he didn’t have those thick glasses on. He talked about LASIK surgery in his left eye, and how he had survived a car accident while it was healing.

I looked at his other eye and pulled his leg in jest. ‘Miser! You had surgery in just one eye? What about that squint eye of yours?’

Ouch, that must have hurt.

He smiled it off. ‘My right eye didn’t need it, D.’

I was wicked. ‘No wonder you banged your car, you were looking London talking Tokyo, man!’

His answer hammered the day lights out of me. ‘No point straightening a squint eye that can’t see.’

My jaw dropped. I gawked at him, my throat dry. 

He explained, ‘I was born blind in the right eye, D.’

We’d been friends for thirty-five years, and he’d never dropped a hint.

In shock now, I asked how he could even drive.

He took out his US issue licence. ‘They let me drive, for I had one good eye. And I took good care of that one all my life, D.’

That day, Rambo left me enlightened with three powerful lessons:

One, don’t crib about your shortcomings.

Two, fix things worth fixing, dump the dead weight.

Three, life finds its way.

How would your life change if you stumbled over a crore (ten million) rupees and no one came to claim it?

Ask ten people and get eleven answers. But here's what happened to Dhan Raju who was a clerk in the forests department in Andhra, in an area infested by the Naxals (Maoist groups present in eastern and southern India). 

Around sunset one day, Dhan Raju was cycling back from work, when he chanced upon a bag lying on the roadside. It was heavy. He propped it on the seat and waited to see if anyone came looking for it. No one. He unzipped its mouth, peeped inside and his eyes popped out. There were heaps and bundles of soiled currency. He had never seen a stack of one-thousand-rupee notes.

His heart pounding, he zipped the bag up and waited until he couldn't hold his pee any more. Then Raju pedalled so fast, you'd have bet he'd win the Olympics that evening. He arrived home safe, drenched in sweat... and piddle.

They stayed up all night, squealing in delight. Raju's wife and son smelt the musty odour of the pink notes. They counted, straightened and stacked the crumpled ones and bundled them with jute twine. Only when they stacked them in a suitcase did they realise they had one hundred bundles. One crore rupees. 

By morning, the excitement had given way to panic.

Raju: 'Should we turn it over to the police? 
Son: 'Don't be silly, nana, they'll take it all.'  
Wife. 'Emandi, Lady luck knocks only once.'
Raju: 'What if it belonged to the Naxals?'
Wife: 'Let them ask, and we'll say we found it. Until then, mum.'
Finally, Raju gave in, on one condition. He ordered his son, 'Kumar, take one of these notes and buy something in the neighbouring town.' 
It was a smart idea. They’d know if the notes were fake.

Kumar returned that evening with a month's stock of fragrant rice and a box of sweets. ‘The shop keeper took it right away, said it was a rare note, ' he beamed.

They thanked Lakshmi, the Wealth Goddess, ate more than they had ever eaten in a day, and stayed awake again all night, planning.

The son said, 'We can't live in this village. Let's run away.'  
Raju chided him. 'You fool, that will only make everyone wonder. You leave first, find a place in town. We'll follow when things cool down.'
Next day, the neighbours learnt with gloom and envy about the son’s new city job.  

Weeks passed. Raju and his wife stayed indoors, saw no one, and even stopped the newspaper. They stayed awake at nights caressing the bundles like a new born baby, and slept all morning.
A month later, they gifted their cow to the neighbours and left for the city with just one suitcase.  

On arrival, they headed straight to the bank, where Kumar had opened an account with a locker facility. They stashed all the bundles inside their locker.  Except one – for celebration. Then, father and son went to the teller and held out a thousand-rupee note.
Raju: 'Can you change this into tens please!'  
The teller looked at it from strange angles and held it up against the light.
‘Interesting, It’s the second one I'm seeing in a month.'
Raju felt jitters, but his son was defiant. 'So what?'
The clerk smiled. 'Have you more of these?'
Raju and Kumar cackled. 'How many do you want?'
The clerk was flustered. 'How many have you got?'
Raju pouted. ‘Ten thousand less one. Give us all tens. Ok?'

They were soon inside the manager's office. The hundred bundles stacked up clean on his desk. Someone took photos of them standing behind the bundles. The teller then handed Raju a ten-rupee bundle. 'Here’s a thousand rupees.'  
Kumar glared at him. 'And for the rest?'
The manager handed them a receipt for '9998 stale notes, face value Rupees 1000 each, market value: nil.'
The son fumed. 'Stale notes? Are you joking?’
The manager glowered back at him. 'You're the one that's joking. Haven't you seen the new thousand rupee note?'  He held out a crisp note with Mahatma Gandhi's picture on it.
Raju pleaded. 'But he paid full price for one note.'
The teller was polite. ‘The bank didn’t buy it. I did. Because I am a note collector.'
Son: 'Even the village shop keeper took one last month!'
Teller: ‘He was the one that brought it to the bank’s attention. We knew more would surface.'
Raju: ‘Are these fake?’
Teller: ‘No, they are just stale, off-circulation for more than ten years.’
Son: ‘Off-circulation?’
Manager: ‘It's the only way to kill black money.

Raju stood dazed, as the peon fed bundle after bundle into the shredder.

As they entered the village late that night, Raju asked his wife, 'Do you think we’ll have to buy back our cow?'

Moral: If you find a bagful of notes, bank it at once.