Borrowing is common enough where books and money are concerned with both being seldom returned. With regard to books the lender may perhaps go over to the borrower’s place and reclaim it off the table or shelf. He may even read and place it back if the borrower, usually a close friend, has not finished with it. It is not so straightforward with money. A book is nonchalantly asked for, and despite some reserve the book owner parts with it, as sharing of knowledge is indeed sacred. But asking for money is trickier and the person may either directly request the amount or resort to rhetoric to wriggle out the money.
The entire modus operandi is selected by the versatile borrower. I have been a soft target for both types. Once, an art school teacher had boldly asked me for a couple of thousands citing hardship due to Covid along with the promise that it would be repaid.
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I lent, realising fully well that it was verily a gift. I especially remember an experience wherein a remotely known person, managed to wrest a sizable amount from me. As a teenager I had known him as a neighbour’s whining son who used to accompany the father on his visits to my huge house in my home town. I forgot his existence for decades thereafter. One fine day he turned up at my threshold with a sob story of having lent a sizable amount to a person who had not returned it as yet and the money was urgently needed for his daughter’s education. Horrifyingly he started shedding tears saying that he would be unable to pay any interest but would return the amount within a few months.
Although I was never in the money lending business, his story and tears moved me, especially as his daughter’s education was at stake. I handed him over the money at the bank without as much as his signature behind the cheque such was my faith in an elderly neighbour’s son. Well, a few years later, not hearing from him, I called his landline. His wife acted surprised and vehemently denied that her husband had taken the money and even gave me a mouthful for calling. I was aghast at her attitude and knew then that I had lost my hard earned money thanks to a fraudster couple. Recently a friend of mine narrated how he had lent a few lakhs to a crorepati businessman who in turn had given him a promissory note and a handsome rate of interest.
The interest stopped after a few years, and my friend has been faithfully making a monthly trip to the businessman’s establishment with an optimist’s conviction that his luck would turn that particular day. Each time he is given the bright assurance of an online transfer by the businessman. The false assurances are continuing and it has struck my friend that the promissory note may just turn out to be a scrap of paper! An Albanian proverb goes, “If you lend your money, either lose it or gain an enemy.”
Shakespeare said this too, in another way, “Neither a borrower nor a lender be; for a loan doth oft lose both itself and friend”. But if you wish to turn into a unique stoic, become a lender.
