Seller of Dreams

Fiction

“You sell dreams, don’t you?” I asked.  The lottery man looked at me rather bewildered.

I knew him for many years.  He used to sell Kerala government’s lottery tickets in the small town a few kilometres from my village.  Whenever he met me in the town he would come to me with a lottery ticket which I normally purchased in order not to disappoint him.  I never won any prize.

The lottery man smiled at me having overcome his bewilderment.  “What will life be without dreams?” he asked.

“Has anyone who bought tickets from you ever won a prize?” I was curious.

He hesitated a moment.  “Yes, up to ₹5000.” 

The chance of winning a bigger prize would be something like 0.000001.  I looked at the ticket he had handed me.  Its number was a six digit figure.  There would be 5 or 6 series of such 6-digit numbers.  No wonder the lottery man could not produce even a single winner of a sizeable prize though he was in the profession for over many years.

“Even winning the last prize of ₹100 triggers bigger dreams, I guess,” I said.  “How much do you earn a day?”

“Two to three hundred.”  He didn’t look quite pleased with my question.  But he couldn’t afford to displease even an occasional customer.

A man walked up to the lottery man with a smile that indicated close familiarity.  “I couldn’t meet you yesterday,” he said.

“But I kept your ticket,” The lottery man told him.

“So ₹30 gone!” he smiled.  “Anyway give me one of today’s.”

“Not gone,” said the lottery man.  “Your ticket won ₹5000.”

“What?”

“Yup.  Take your ticket and encash it from any agent.  I don’t have such an amount to give you.”  The lottery man fished out the ticket from his bag and gave it to the client.  

“After so many months,” the man gasped.  “I won something at least after so many months.”  He bought another ticket and placed a ₹100-rupee note in the lottery man’s hand.  “Keep the balance.”

“You could have taken the winning ticket yourself,” I said after the man had left.

“Haven’t I sold him a bigger dream now?”  He smiled impishly.  “Anyway he has given me more than that amount in the last many years.  He deserves that much at least.”

His question as well as the explanation lingered on in my mind as I walked away with the ticket he had sold me.  A dream was rising in my being, I realised.  It was not about a prize amount.  It was something I couldn’t interpret yet.