My college days in the mid-50s marked a spell of “honest poverty” and “penury”. I did not have even a reasonable supply of notebooks, let alone text books.
Comes the epic movie, “Ten Commandments”, featuring Yul Brynner and Charlton Heston. It went on drawing ever-swelling audiences at a theatre in our neighbouring port town just ten kilometers away. For days on end, my muddled mind droned with one single thought: How to manage Rs 5(Dh0.28) for the lowest class ticket, bus fare and a cup of tea. “The hour produces the man”; here the hour produced the agency. My College Planning Forum announced an essay contest in English. I put my name down for it and approached a cousin, fortunately an adherent only of the latter part of the Bard’s admonition, “neither a lender nor a borrower be”. Buttressing my creditworthiness, I mentioned the essay competition, carrying a cash prize. Mentally kissing it goodbye, he gave me the amount. My dream materialised.
I stood second and the take-away was a princely cash award of Rs 5. Into my masterpiece, I had, studiously skirting around Economics, my pet aversion, squeezed in some good idioms and expressions I knew, most of them irrelevant. Probably, there was no provision in the rules to disqualify entries not satisfying a minimum standard!
During prize distribution, the guest ceremoniously handed over to me a brown envelope. I rushed to the toilet to open it. Lo, a slip of paper fell down, whereupon was scribbled, “Please meet the professor on the first of next month”.
On the appointed day, early in the morning, with a prayer-filled soul, I presented myself before the professor. A crackling five rupee note changed hands, accompanied by the professor’s explanation of some funds problem for the delay.
When I gave the note to my financier, he shot an incredulous glance at me. May be difficult to believe: I have never had a chance to confront creditors keen on seeing my interior anatomy, or, for myself, to see the interior of prisons!
- The writer is a retired officer of the Reserve Bank of India based in India
