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Dharmendra Kumar presently residing in United States orginally from Hyderabad, India. His other hobbies include reading novels, movies and playing card games
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Crossroads
by
Dharmendra Kumar
“Hi, do you remember me?” Seema was standing in front of my desk. That was quite a surprise for me. She was still having that ravishing beauty like in the olden days; in fact she looked more beautiful than ever. Those dimples which made me crazy about her smile were gleaming at me as she gave a small chuckle. ‘Age never had any influence on her beauty’ I thought. Breaking my thoughts she said, “Hey Mohan! Come to this world.”
“I am sorry,” I felt embarrassed. Trying to cover up my surprise and my thoughts I asked her, “So, how are you Seema?”
“Just simply doing great. I resigned the bank job long back and now presently working in a private company as a company secretary.” There was little pride in her eyes.
“Is it? That is really good. As you see, I am still in the same job” I tried to draw a smile which did not work too well.
“So..Are you going to ask me to sit or not?” she put her old teasing face.
“I am so sorry for not being courteous” I got up and pulled a chair for her.
“What about your family, are you married?” she asked while sitting down. There was that smell of imported perfume from her. She was always fond of nice and good perfumes.
“Yes I am. Her name is Janaki. Two sons, eldest is studying eight and youngest is in fifth” I briefed her about my family.
“Nice simple family” she commented.
“What about you?” I enquired.
“My husband works for G&K industries. One daughter, six years old”
“Nice. I never heard from you after that. Where have you been?”
“You know that I left to Delhi on request transfer. After one year I got bored with the job, so I did my post graduation. Then I got this job in G&K. There I met Ravi and we fell in love with each other and got married.”
She was still the same old Seema. She was my colleague in my first posting after clerical training. I was madly in love with her and never pulled enough guts to tell her. I remained as a silent admirer. Even when she announced her transfer to Delhi, I could not able to express my feelings. ‘Coward’ was the curse I used for myself whenever I suffered with her memories. After that I never heard anything about her until today as she appeared from nowhere.
We chatted for half an hour or so. There were lots of things we talked. We talked about our old colleagues and those funny days. She told me about her husband and their house in the posh area of Delhi. She had been visiting Hyderabad with her husband. Through one of our old colleague, who presently working in Reserve Bank of India, she came to know about me and came to surprise me. I felt elated with the feeling that Seema remembered me.
“OK bye then. Let us keep in touch at least now” she bid farewell to me and left. I sat at my desk still absorbed in the memories of Seema and the shock she gave to me.
At one or other times in our lives, we come across something called crossroads. The junction at which, multiple routes will be unfolded towards the future. If one path leads to hard life, the other leads to a cozy one. If one leads to a great career, the other towards a mediocre. If one leads to heaven, the other leads to hell. The funny thing is, we have to choose only one path. And most of the times, once we choose, we cannot go back and choose the other one.
‘Not being able to venture in expressing my love for Seema’ was one kind of such a choosing. It was not that I was not happy with my marriage. But the simple guilt feeling that I could not able to express my love then will haunt me for life time, I believe.
“Good afternoon sir! You look like you are in deep thoughts” Sudharshan greeted with smile.
“No..nothing really” I shook my head little and tried to attend to his work. He came to deposit his five lakh rupees check into their company account. He runs a small business across the street of our bank. Normally all deposits are done at teller counters. If the limit exceeds five lakh rupees, which normally had been the case with Sudharshan, he had to go through me. I entered his check entry into log book, and threw the log book into out box.
“Thank you very much sir!” Sudharshan said while leaving. “Good mannered person” I thought about him. I had known him for the last two years. He always showed his nice manners and good humorous talking.
It must be Seema. I was little happy for the rest of my day at the office. With the same spirits, I returned home. “Good evening daddy!” my little son greeted me at the gate. I patted him on his head and gave him the chocolate I bought on the way home.
After two days when I was taking a break for tea, I noticed Sudharshan was at the bank withdrawing money from his account. He had a big handbag. ‘Must be drawing huge amount today’ I thought.
Later that week, when I went to buy shoes for my eldest son in Abids, I noticed Sudharshan and my colleague Shekhar, standing in front of a posh bar and restaurant. ‘What on earth are these two people doing together?’ I wondered. ‘Have the friendship from bank led till here?’
Now and then I thought about Seema and as I thought more and more about her, the more and more clear it became, that I was not fit for her in any way. ‘Could I have given her the life what she is having now?’ I reasoned.
The next day Sudharshan came up with another cheque for eight lakhs. He talked about politics and the present government economic policy. ‘It is not quite encouraging for small scale industries’ he quipped.
After he took the receipt from me, he walked to Shekhar’s desk and stopped for a brief second there before leaving the bank. I felt the urge to go up to Shekhar and ask him about what they were doing at the bar and restaurant. Even though it was none of my business, it interested me more than anything. Mainly because Shekhar was not known for his good conduct in bank business practices. He was caught earlier in a bank, stealing fifty thousand rupees and there was a rumor around that he bribed heavily and escaped the punishment.
That evening I took my wife and children to a movie. I did not enjoy the movie much as I was suffering with migraine. I just could not disappoint my children, so I sat for the whole movie. I took double the dose of tablets before I went to bed.
After two days Sudharshan appeared in the bank with a big handbag again. ‘Must be to withdraw the money’ I concluded. Unconsciously I noticed that Shekhar was watching Sudharshan too. There was tension written all over his face. I turned and saw Sudharshan again. Even though he was seeming normal, now and then he also was staring at Shekhar. That continued till Sudharshan left the bank. I could clearly notice the sigh of relief on Shekhar’s face.
I suspected something fishy. Something did not seem to be going right. I felt like I needed to dig around a little to find out what it was. I went casually around and pulled the ledger which was having Sudharshan’s account details. His account showed the minimal balance, as he withdrew all the eight lakhs rupees which he deposited through the check two days before. ‘What kind of business was he is doing with this kind of account?’
When I read all this past records, for the last six months or so, there were only two kinds of transactions in the records. One, he was always depositing some money into his account through one check. And another he was drawing all that money out after two days. Nothing seemed strange except the minimal balance in his account was always maintained. So I left the matter there and resumed for my normal work.
Later that week Sudharshan came with another check for five lakh rupees to deposit. I tried to chitchat with him casually. I purposefully delayed his transaction a little, requested him to wait for a while in front of my desk. While he was waiting I started asking him about his business and other general details. I felt like he was a nice person to spend sometime with.
“Is Shekhar related to you in any way?” I tried to enquire very casually.
That fell like a bomb on him. He quickly showed his fear and then anxiety on hearing the question. I could see the beads of sweat on his forehand. He took out his hankie and wiping his face and lowering his voice he asked, “Which Shekhar, I don’t know any Shekhar?”
I raised my chin a little and signed towards the desk of Shekhar.
“No. I know him from here, at the bank, that’s all” he replied hastily and hurried out pulling the receipt from my hands.
That day I decided to write a letter to Seema after the bank working hours. I sat for more than an hour, but could not write even a single paragraph. On one side, my mind was struggling to get the right words to write and on the other side, it was thinking about Sudharshan and Shekhar. ‘What is it that they are doing?’
I stayed back for little more time that evening and in the name of searching for some lost check, I went around Shekhar’s desk and pulled out the check book, which records the transactions of the cheques which are sent out for clearing. I noticed couple of transactions in the name of “Latif and Co”, the name of the company Sudharshan had been depositing cheques in.
As if something struck my mind, I pulled out the ledger which records the cleared cheques transactions. Even though I searched couple of times, I did not find any single transaction in the name of “Latif and Co”, except a few and that too were six months old. That means, even though the “Latif and Co” cheques were sent out for clearance, they never really got cleared.
For all the outstation cheques, normally depending on the credibility of the Cheque issuer, the money would be counted as ‘deposited’ if we don’t hear anything from the other bank with in three days. Initially the “Latif and Co” cheques were cleared for first couple of months so that it established a good credibility towards the cheques Sudharshan had been depositing. For the last six months there were no transactions in the cleared cheque ledger. And no complaints were ever received from the other bank. That means the cheques were never sent out for clearance. But a simple transaction always had been made for the ledger sake.
That was a fine loophole in the entire banking process. I felt I understood the game Shekhar and Sudharshan had been playing. They were swindling the money from the bank. The whole transactions would not be really checked and tallied up until the end of the financial year. Shekhar would show some kind of proof that he had been sending the cheques out for clearing. But there was no mechanism to double check that money had returned to the bank.
I could not sleep that night at all. ‘What to do?’ was the only thought that came up over and over again. My wife asked me what happened. I silently pushed her out to do something else as I decided to keep things to myself.
Even though I thought about it the whole night, I did not get a single clue on how to deal with it. I silently went to office the next day and started doing my routine work. After an hour or so, Shekhar came down to my desk and offered me ‘tea’. That was the first time he ever offered anything to me. I knew what this was all about.
When we were out at the café he leaned towards me and said in a low voice, “We are ready to offer twenty percent commission to you.”
I tried to put on an innocent face. “I know that you know it. Let us cut the crap and come to the point. This is the best offer we can give you. Even if you go and complain, they can not really find anything. So join us”
I understood his confidence. He was sure that they cannot find out. It was not the responsibility of the clerk to follow up on some check that he sent out for clearing.
“I need sometime to think about your offer” I told him showing appreciation over his offer to me.
I possibly did nothing that day. I dribbled here and there and left the office early saying that I was sick. My mind was lingering over the money. I calculated approximately the total money involved in the last six months, must be around fifty lakh rupees. Twenty percent of fifty lakh is ten lakhs. That was in fact a very good amount of money. I could possibly buy a home and need not worry about my children’s education any more.
Certainly this was another crossroads in my life. I needed to choose a path now. On one side, I could see a rich and corrupt life, where as, on the other side tough and middle-class life. If I choose to partake with Shekhar and Sudharshan, I could possibly stand proud when I meet Seema for the next time.
There was this battle of thoughts between ethics and immorality. I thought my heated mind would break into pieces. In a flash I visualized myself being rich. But the very next moment fear took over me when I imagined myself being behind the bars. ‘What will happen to my wife and children?’ But more than anything else my heart shivered over the feeling of being guilty on acting against my consciousness.
The next day I went to office and told Shekhar about my acceptance to their offer. In order to show that I was really into it, I tried to bargain my share to twenty five percent but we closed the deal on twenty two percent. That very same day I went to anti-corruption bureau and told them the whole story. They spied on both Shekhar and Sudharshan for couple of days and on riding their homes, found enough evidence against them to charge them for the swindle.
Having all the things cleared, once again I sat down at my office desk to write a letter to Seema. But this time my thoughts were very clear and I knew what kind of path I chose at my crossroads.
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