Sometimes one wonders whether life has been influenced in
Ramanna is sitting on a chair with right leg on bags of groceries in the front. He is eating rice with sambar. His friend Nagendra, is smoking a beedi, sitting on the stone bench near the entrance of the house. The dog Tommy, was wagging its tail and occasionally barking at Ramanna for its share of rice.
“Yesterday again these guys came pleading to sell my house.” Ramanna said after drinking water.
“It’s a corner site no that’s why” Nagendra justified, while looking in to the cloud of smoke from his beedi.
“This has made my life hell. I want to put a board that this house is not for sale. They come they see it’s a corner site, they see that my house is a humble one and they conclude that I must be little better than a beggar and then they talk to me about lakhs as if hanging a bone piece before dog.”
“So they trouble you all the time. Do they also knock the door of your restroom when you are struggling to kick out your previous day’s dirt?” Nagendra laughed loudly.
“In the beginning I thought I am some important person. There were big people coming in big cars and talking to me of lakhs of rupees. No body traveling in cars earlier cared about me. These real estate guys, who put on gold like mythological characters, would take me around in their luxury cars. They would offer me drinks like scotch whiskey, very smooth. One day I realized I am not interested in selling my house. I still remember that day; I had fallen in to gutter behind you. I was drunk and someone came running, picked me up and left me in the house.”
After laughter Nagendra said, “Ramanna, don’t you think that you are a lucky chap? Had you anytime imagined that your piece of this dirty land would be worth lakhs of rupees? All you have here is a house of mud, few stones, a neem tree, few hens and a dog.”
“I don’t think I consider it my good fortune now. This place of mine I have started getting addicted like never before.”
“If that is the case instead of putting a board of “not for sale” put “under litigation”….then you see nobody will even think having a look at your drunken, swollen, unshaven, unwashed face of yours.”
Ramanna felt that this is the way and the best one.
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