Favor banking

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कर्मण्येवाधिकारस्ते मा फलेषु कदाचन।

मा कर्मफलहेतुर्भूर्मा ते सङ्गोऽस्त्वकर्मणि॥ २-४७

Karmanye vadhikaraste Ma Phaleshu Kadachana,

Ma Karmaphalaheturbhurma Te Sangostvakarmani

That shloka is from Gita, do your duty and don’t bother about reward. But in today’s world everyone thinks why I should do for others when others don’t bother about me. Yes it is kind of selfish thinking.

Let us come to the ground reality. If without any ulterior motive one does for others then that favor done gets banked like one puts money in the bank. An honest receiver of favor always tries to return the favor and that return would be voluntary without any strings attached. This is known as favor banking.

The other day I noticed our maidservant is dusting the bookshelves and also folding our clothes. I was pretty surprised because she is supposed to clean utensils and sweep the floor. I asked my wife about this additional work what she was doing.

“She has started doing this on her own.” was her reply.

“Why suddenly?”

“Remember I got her the LPG connection!”

In her house our maidservant was using kerosene stove for cooking but she wanted a LPG gas connection, she did not have the requisite money. My wife paid the initial security amount; my wife took the pain of going with our maidservant in a rickshaw to the Indane distributor, filled up the form after getting all the relevant documents zeroxed. Now she got her gas and has given my wife’s mobile number as her LPG contact number. This extra effort was her way of showing gratitude to us.

As per my own experience I have seen lower strata people are more grateful than those who are in higher strata. In my service life I have helped many to climb the corporate ladder but at a later date majority of them acted as though they got it because they deserved it and no favor done.
This time when we went to Darjeeling we stayed in West Bengal Tourist Lodge,due to delay of our flight we could reach Darjeeling only at 8 pm in the night instead of scheduled arrival of 3pm. The room service man Ratan settled us down quickly by putting on the geezer,room heater etc. As per my practice i pay tips when i arrive and so tipped him 100 bucks. Next day early morning he served us bed tea, we looked out of the window and due to cloud Kanchanjungha was not visible and we told him so. He was also feeling sad that on the first day morning we could not see the great peak. We were having tea in our third floor room when heard a knock, opened the door and found Ratan gasping entered the room to inform that the cloud has moved away and Kanchanjungha was visible. Yes we went out in the balcony and got the magnificent view and thanked Ratan for his initiative and tipped him 50 bucks. This was the favor done by Ratan to us by giving that extra service of informing us timely the appearance of the peak.

While I was in Darjeeling the last date of a filling form of a golf tournament was over. The starters of golf course were more worried about that than me. They approached the management and got my name entered. Simultaneously another officer of the company sponsoring the tournament made sure my name is there, this senior officer had worked with me in my present company. This incident also proves that favor banking does work.

So friends try helping people and there is someone up there looking after you.

My newly acquired business sense !

 Ratan came in the morning with the cheque from Rakesh who had taken our flat on rent. He has been staying in that flat pretty long and paying the same rent. My wife was not happy about this status quo affair of rent.As usual i had to bear the brunt for my lethargy.

I was reading the morning newspaper when Ratan entered with that cheque and with a big smile handed it over to my wife.i looked up from the newspaper at  Ratan,

"Ratan,why don't you ask that Rakesh guy to increase the rent." somehow i feel awkward while directly talking about money with my tenant who is a much younger guy so tried to use Ratan as middleman.

"Sir,the other day he was telling his friend that if my landlord ask for increase then i will leave the flat."

Now after my retirement i am working in a private firm and have learnt a few tricks about bringing people around by using the money trap.

"Ratan,here is a deal for you,if you can get the rate increased then you will get 10% monthly of that increased amount." I patted myself for thinking up this devious method to address the issue.

The problem with people in Bengal is that they are not born with business sense, i thought to myself.Here i have learnt this trick or two from the business community i associate with in office as well as in golf course.

Ratan had no clue of how to go about convincing Rakesh, by the way Ratan is the security guard of that complex where our flat is located.I could sense his helplessness.

"Look here,it is very simple,you take some dummy house hunters and show that flat.Then Rakesh will get worried thinking that we will not renew his lease.This action will worry him and then you propose the increase." i said brightly and winked at my wife.

Ratan nodded his head and left.

Well that was one year back ,i have been busy and my wife also somehow forgot the issue, the rent remained stagnant. 

I asked Gopal, my driver to check with Ratan the progress of the assignment "Increase rent" given to him. Gopal is quite a clever cookie and i knew that he will get at the bottom of the affair.

Due to golf,blog,travel etc i again forgot about the affair.So another year passed.

I caught Ratan next time when he came with the rent cheque,"What happened?"

"I told Gopal"

"What?"

He started shuffling his feet and started giving me a guilty look.

"Hey,what are you up to?"

Suddenly it stuck me, let me tell you all these clever thoughts have started appearing in my mind after i joined this private company and learnt the tricks of the trade. In public sector we were bound by rule books so no working between the lines, there we work in " go nogo modes".

"Did you make a deal with Rakesh?"I shouted at him.

"Babu,when i went to Rakeshji for the increase then he straight away offered me 100 rupees per month extra and asked me not to bother him,so i kept quiet."

"Ok,then i asked Gopal to check with you."

"Sir,now Rakeshji pays 100 to me and 100 to Gopal every month.'

My ego got punctured,i was gaping at Ratan ,he was shyly grinning at me and my wife gave a look of "i told you, you are not that smart as you think yourself", 

My ego got deflated,all these time i was thinking that i have mastered all the tricks of the market.

Disclaimer: nothing has really happened as mentioned in the story .I have used real names but the whole episode is figment of my imagination.