Doubling The Wealth
Chamanlal was a well-known merchant. He traded in several items- from grain to gold. He was already one of the richest men of his city, but he never stopped dreaming of growing even richer! A time came when the rich men of the city started living in an abnormally extravagant manner. This gave rise to a rumor that someone in the city was manufacturing counterfeit coins. "Only if I knew the secret of making false money! I could then become a man of billions overnight," Chamanlal told himself and sighed. One day, while returning home from his shop he noticed a gentleman giving a handful of coins to a beggar. He greeted the gentleman and said, "You must be very rich to be able to give so much money to a beggar!" "Do you wish to be as rich as me?" asked the gentleman who gave out his name as Sudarshan. "Well, who does not wish to have more than he has? I must admit that I will like to be richer than I am," replied Chamanlal after some hesitation. The gentleman lowered his voice and said, "Let me be frank with you. The coins I passed on to the beggar are fake ones. But nobody can make them out from the real ones. Here are ten fake coins. Try to pass them as real in any shop. I bet, you will be successful." Chamanlal accepted the coins in his trembling hand and got into a cloth shop. He bought a piece of linen for the money.
The shop keeper did not express any doubt about the genuineness of the coins. "Surely, you do not doubt my statement any more!" said Sudarshan patting on Chamanlal's back. "Now, listen to my proposal. You give us one hundred coins. We give you two hundred counterfeit coins. You receive a hundred percent profit. Is this not a fair deal?" "It is," admitted Chamanlal with great excitement. He carried a hundred coins to Sudarshan the same evening. Sudarshan kept them carefully in a box, but from another box he picked up coins rather carelessly and handed them over to Chamanlal, saying, "I don't mind if there are more than two hundred!" Delighted, Chamanlal found the amount to be two hundred and twenty. He was still more thrilled when a rice merchant accepted the coins without hesitation. Thereafter he regularly gave a hundred coins to Sudarshan and received double the amount from him. One day Sudarshan confided to him that they were going to shift their place of operation to another city. That shocked Chamanlal. "You can do one thing. Carry as much money as you like to our main center which is in a village. You can bring back double for the last time," suggested Sudarshan. Chamanlal loaded all his bags of coins in a cart and guided by Sudarshan went to a village miles away from the city. While returning with two fully loaded carts Sudarshan provided him with two guards. Midway they noticed some sepoys of the king coming in their direction, riding horses, "There is an inquiry going on to trace the source of counterfeit money. If these sepoys get curious and find out that the carts are loaded with counterfeit coins, we can very well say that we have nothing to do with these carts," proposed one of the guards.
Chamanlal was coward by nature. His heartbeat increased as the sepoys came closer. The sepoys, indeed, detained the carts and wanted to know what the bags contained. Chamanlal, the guards, and the carters had by then got down. The guards said that they were farmers who had come to visit their own fields and they had no more knowledge of the carts than the sepoys themselves had! "We have some suspicion about the content of these carts. Better we drive the carts to the king's court," announced the sepoys and they drove the carts away. Chamanlal stood thunderstruck. "Thank your luck that you are not caught and hanged," said the guards. Chamanlal plodded on to the city and took to bed. His shock brought him a fever and he suffered for a full month. He had lost all his money. However, he had some merchandise in his store and much goodwill in the trading community. He decided to start from scratch again. On his way to the shop, after a month-long absence, he noticed Sudarshan giving a lot of coins to a lame beggar in such a way so as to attract the attention of a wealthy passer-by.
Chamanlal followed the beggar. The fellow, after a while, walked normally. Chamanlal now understood how Sudarshan attracted others' attention and then gradually lured them into his trap. Coming nearer to the false beggar Chamanlal found him to be one of the two guards who had accompanied him in his journey from the village. In a flash, it occurred to him that those who led away the carts could also be the members of the same gang and not real sepoys. He spoke out his doubts about the fake beggar. The fellow admitted being a member of the gang. "We are cheats, but we are prepared to be caught one day. So far as you are concerned, you have much to lose if people come to know that you ran after counterfeit money," the fellow had the cheek to warn Chamanlal. "But I lost everything!" murmured Chamanlal with a sigh. "Why don't you borrow from us and begin your business in a new spirit?" asked the fellow. "Why should I borrow counterfeit money from you?" asked Chamanlal. The fellow laughed and said, "Are you still under the impression that we gave you counterfeit coins? They were as true as your coins. We could afford to give you double because we knew that at last, all your money will be ours! We do not deal with fake money, but in real money, my friend!" The fellow left Chamanlal agape.
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