I am in awe of certain people. A few such gentlemen swindled a national bank in India recently.
“Let me calculate how many dirhams is Rupees 11,400 crore,” I told my wife, after reading the sensational headline in the morning newspaper.
“Why dirhams, we are in India now?” said my wife.
“Well, when we were in Dubai, you were always converting dirhams to rupees and giving me a heart attack over the price of tomatoes,” I said. “Because of you, I never could enjoy an omelette with tomatoes, onions and green chilies, or tomato chutney with khichdi.”
“After living so many years abroad, I cannot relate to a crore. Does it have six zeros, is it a million or ten million, it is confusing,” I said and shouted, “OMG. It is Dh6 million.”
“Six million dirhams doesn’t get you far these days,” said my wife. “Everything costs a bundle.”
“We should have saved more money when we were working abroad,” I said.
“Yes, we should have saved instead of paying for our kids’ education, or eating seven days a week, or getting fleeced by the landlord,” said my wife.
“It needs guts to do what these guys have done. I would not be able to do what these guys did. The other day I went to the bank that my financial adviser in Dubai had opened an account for me for securities trading, here in Bengaluru. It seemed like it was in some village. The security guard had a gun but I don’t think it was loaded. I asked to meet the manager and after a few minutes he invited me into his cabin.
I told him the trouble I was having trying to do online banking transactions. He asked me for the account number, looked at his computer screen silently for a few minutes, then he turned and looked at me strangely. ‘There is nothing in the account. You need to keep a minimum balance. There is a penalty of Rupees 9,000,” he said.
“You need money to make money,” said my wife laughing.
“Those diamond selling bank crooks had not given anything, no collateral, nothing and they got millions of rupees of credit,” I said.
“You need someone inside the financial institutions,” said my wife. “Do you think I should ask our friends to get something from Rolla Square for the manager. Maybe one of those Eau de toilette bottles or better still, a Rolex. It looks real. The same one would cost double in Hong Kong,” I said.
“If you go to jail, I will lose my job,” said my wife. “The housing association members are particular about who they rent the flat to.”
Making jute bags in jail
“I don’t plan on getting caught. Do you know how slowly the wheels of justice move here? By the time the case comes to the courts I would have died of boredom in jail. I believe you have to make jute bags as soon as you wake up. I hate making jute bags. But at least they are environmental friendly, unlike the plastic bags that choke the stray cows,” I said after an afterthought. “Remember the movie, Fox of Wall Street,” said my wife.
“The Wolf of Wall Street,” I corrected her.
“I liked the scene where he gives a pen to someone and says, “sell me this pen”. What you need is good marketing,” said my wife. “But the language used in the movie was filthy. Why can’t one be a nice person and still make money?”
“Maybe we can call the bank manager home and cook him a nice vegetarian meal,” I said.
“I still have to think of a plan. The securities course I was doing? They failed me in financial jargon. We will have to defer plans to cheat the bank,” I said.
Mahmood Saberi is a storyteller and blogger based in Bengaluru, India. Twitter: @mahmood_saberi
