Rahil woke up early that day. It was the same day one year back, that he had lost some thirty thousand rupees that his father had given him for setting up a business of his own. But due to an unabated passion for dwindling money in the cross market shares, he had lost all of his money with the downfall of the market share prices.
The event had cast a dark shadow over his life. He had lost some valuable money that his father had collected aside for him. Rahil was never a good student, so his father had always thought that keeping aside some money for him would help him build a steady plight in his life. However, Ali, his father had always loved him despite all his shortcomings and failures. Ali knew, it wasn't right for everyone to do the same thing.
Rahil had lived the last one year in an unseen agony. He had become suicidal of late until that day, when his eyes were on a news that turned the tables around. The newspaper showed "ASSURED RETURNS ON INVESTMENTS" on the very first page of the paper.
As his eyes went to the segment of this news in the newspaper, he snatched the newspaper and read the article. The article said,"State row on the increased performance of the market is adequately counter balanced by the new theory for work and pay mechanism. A German scholar, Mr. Reshten, believes returns are caused by the inflow of money, which in turn is motivated by the service of the people. If everyone worked there part, the economy shouldn't be at a stale state as it is now."
Although, he had assumed that there will be some shortcuts to finding the lost money, but he was dejected to read the first part of the article that was published in the front page. Somewhere in his heart, still there was a shinning hope that things could change.
The mist cleared out as he came to the fifth page of the newspaper where the concluding part of the conversation was published. He was startled to see the amazing idea to get money without doing any work as he read the advertisement in the newspaper. The newspaper suggested that if anyone could arrange for a garrage and twelve sacks of stinking socks and keep the stinking socks intact for ten days, he or she would be rewarded with an honorarium of Rupees three lakhs. There was only one request from the advertisers, "Please do not ask further questions till the job is complete."
Rahil, immediately called up on the phone number. The offer was lucrative and Rahil offered their own garrage and promised to collect all the twelve sacks of stinking socks within next two days. Rahil asked the man to come over to his place. After two days, when Rahil had finished collecting the twelve sacks of stinking socks from the garbage and dumpgrounds all over the city, Mr. Fento came to his house on his high class sedan. He parked his sedan (most probably a very expensive car bought from some foreign country) inside their garrage and asked Rahil to keep all the twelve huge sacks of those stinking socks infront of the car covering it totally. Mr. Fento asked Rahil, to allow the car to smell the stink of the socks and that not even two percent of the total intial stink should be wasted during the next ten days.
Without any further question, or disagreement, the door of the garrage was sealed air-tight, so that air could neither come out nor go in. Mr. Fento said to Rahil, "Do not disturb me for the next ten days. I will see how my car reacts to the stinking socks only after ten days it has tolerated it. Just because I like driving with my shoes off and only with my socks, the car keeps complaining to me that I pollute its clutch pedal, brake and the accelerator. Now it will realise, what actual stink is like."
Rahil understood that the man was mad. He was absolute nonsense but at the same time, he had money. Mr. Fento had given him a post dated cheque of exact six zeroes behind a three. He was impressed. He had never held a cheque of this big an amount. He was excited. Only a matter of ten days. Although, these ten days went like ten full years.
Somehow, these ten days passed. Mr. Fento came back. Rahil unlocked the garrage and a weird smell came out from it. The entire garrage had started to stink like dead lizards. Rahil removed the twelve sacks of the smelling socks, and then, Mr. Fento brought out his car and started driving towards the gate when Rahil came running asking for the money. Mr. Fento, came out of his sedan, sprayed some sprinkling freshening scent in and around the car.
"The cheque's date was today. Can I encash it today?" asked Rahil.
"Yes, of course you can. This three lakh is yours."
"Would you mind telling me, why did you want to help me?"
"I didn't help you. Rather you helped me. I went to Russia for nine days. And this is my favourite car. People are jealous that I own this car and they don't. You kept it safe in your garrage for these ten days away from the eyes of those who can't stand the sight of it."
"Why did you ask for the sacks of stinking socks?"
"So that, everybody thinks it is a garbage, and it doesn't get stolen from your garrage as well?"
Rahil asked, "Why did you offer three lakhs for such a small job?"
"My dear friend, you know what car is that?" asked Mr. Fento to Rahil pointing at the car and continued, "It is a Bugatti Veynor. Three lakhs is not even one fourth a percent of the actual cost of the car." Mr. Fento wore his shades, went and sat inside his car and drove away as Rahil kept looking at the dust trail that the car made while moving ahead.
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