Skip to main content

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.


Comments

  1. UnknownOctober 18, 2017 at 10:49 PM

    What's that dream, sir?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalOctober 19, 2017 at 2:10 PM

      It's something to do with the honesty (if we can call it so) of the dream seller.

      Delete
  2. Pranju chakrapaniOctober 19, 2017 at 5:51 AM

    isn't it how it has always been? Tell me Tomichan, will we ever go beyond the pragmatism of this ponzy scheme of selling dreams and for once believe a leader to be honest? Can there be one in this democracy who would be that honest to sell peanuts for a penny?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalOctober 19, 2017 at 2:15 PM

      You have taken the story to a level I had not imagined. Thanks for that. Is the lottery seller's honesty real honesty? At least, he stands one notch above our politicians. He gives what's due and what he can.

      Delete
  3. Rajeev MoothedathOctober 19, 2017 at 7:32 AM

    Such a nice good feeling post!

    ReplyDelete
  4. जितेन्द्र माथुरOctober 19, 2017 at 9:59 AM

    A very thought-provoking post indeed. Hearty Diwali wishes Sir.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anita SabatOctober 20, 2017 at 11:55 AM

    Hope is what keeps people going.
    The fact that there have been winners makes us wanna join that winner-list :) That explains why people keep on purchasing lottery-tickets for years. And yes, some do succeed after years of trying!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalOctober 20, 2017 at 7:02 PM

      Lottery is mere chance. And the chance is as meagre as that of winning heaven. :)

      Delete
  6. JayanthyOctober 20, 2017 at 10:47 PM

    I personally don't believe in the lottery system. However, this has given me a different idea about it. I must admit the lottery seller's honesty is to he appreciated and thought about.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalOctober 21, 2017 at 7:31 PM

      The Kerala government earns huge revenue through the lottery. A few lucky ones benefit.

      Yes, the seller's honesty is interesting for more than one reason.

      Delete
  7. Jyotirmoy SarkarOctober 21, 2017 at 5:04 PM

    Really a very nice read, honest people still exist.
    Lottery is purely a game of luck some are blessed with that luck(some real incidents those surprised me) and some are not.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalOctober 21, 2017 at 7:32 PM

      The impish smile of the seller makes his honesty interesting to a writer.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ayodhya: Kingdom of Sorrows

T he Sarayu carried more tears than water. Ayodhya was a sad kingdom. Dasaratha was a good king. He upheld dharma – justice and morality – as best as he could. The citizens were apparently happy. Then, one day, it all changed. One person is enough to change the destiny of a whole kingdom. Who was that one person? Some say it was Kaikeyi, one of the three official wives of Dasaratha. Some others say it was Manthara, Kaikeyi’s chief maid. Manthara was a hunchback. She was the caretaker of Kaikeyi right from the latter’s childhood; foster mother, so to say, because Kaikeyi had no mother. The absence of maternal influence can distort a girl child’s personality. With a foster mother like Manthara, the distortion can be really bad. Manthara was cunning, selfish, and morally ambiguous. A severe physical deformity can make one worse than all that. Manthara was as devious and manipulative as a woman could be in a men’s world. Add to that all the jealousy and ambition that insecure peo...
39 comments
Read more

Bharata: The Ascetic King

Bharata is disillusioned yet again. His brother, Rama the ideal man, Maryada Purushottam , is making yet another grotesque demand. Sita Devi has to prove her purity now, years after the Agni Pariksha she arranged for herself long ago in Lanka itself. Now, when she has been living for years far away from Rama with her two sons Luva and Kusha in the paternal care of no less a saint than Valmiki himself! What has happened to Rama? Bharata sits on the bank of the Sarayu with tears welling up in his eyes. Give me an answer, Sarayu, he said. Sarayu accepted Bharata’s tears too. She was used to absorbing tears. How many times has Rama come and sat upon this very same bank and wept too? Life is sorrow, Sarayu muttered to Bharata. Even if you are royal descendants of divinity itself. Rama had brought the children Luva and Kusha to Ayodhya on the day of the Ashvamedha Yagna which he was conducting in order to reaffirm his sovereignty and legitimacy over his kingdom. He didn’t know they w...
30 comments
Read more

The Little Girl

The Little Girl is a short story by Katherine Mansfield given in the class 9 English course of NCERT. Maggie gave an assignment to her students based on the story and one of her students, Athena Baby Sabu, presented a brilliant job. She converted the story into a delightful comic strip. Mansfield tells the story of Kezia who is the eponymous little girl. Kezia is scared of her father who wields a lot of control on the entire family. She is punished severely for an unwitting mistake which makes her even more scared of her father. Her grandmother is fond of her and is her emotional succour. The grandmother is away from home one day with Kezia's mother who is hospitalised. Kezia gets her usual nightmare and is terrified. There is no one at home to console her except her father from whom she does not expect any consolation. But the father rises to the occasion and lets the little girl sleep beside him that night. She rests her head on her father's chest and can feel his heart...
16 comments
Read more

Liberated

Fiction - parable Vijay was familiar enough with soil and the stones it turns up to realise that he had struck something rare.   It was a tiny stone, a pitch black speck not larger than the tip of his little finger. It turned up from the intestine of the earth while Vijay was digging a pit for the biogas plant. Anand, the scientist from the village, got the stone analysed in his lab and assured, “It is a rare object.   A compound of carbonic acid and magnesium.” Anand and his fellow scientists believed that it must be a fragment of a meteoroid that hit the earth millions of years ago.   “Very rare indeed,” concluded the scientist. Now, it’s plain commonsense that something that’s very rare indeed must be very valuable too. All the more so if it came from the heavens. So Vijay got the village goldsmith to set it on a gold ring.   Vijay wore the ring proudly on his ring finger. Nobody, in the village, however bothered to pay any homage to Vijay’s...
47 comments
Read more

Dharma and Destiny

  Illustration by Copilot Designer Unwavering adherence to dharma causes much suffering in the Ramayana . Dharma can mean duty, righteousness, and moral order. There are many characters in the Ramayana who stick to their dharma as best as they can and cause much pain to themselves as well as others. Dasharatha sees it as his duty as a ruler (raja-dharma) to uphold truth and justice and hence has to fulfil the promise he made to Kaikeyi and send Rama into exile in spite of the anguish it causes him and many others. Rama accepts the order following his dharma as an obedient son. Sita follows her dharma as a wife and enters the forest along with her husband. The brotherly dharma of Lakshmana makes him leave his own wife and escort Rama and Sita. It’s all not that simple, however. Which dharma makes Rama suspect Sita’s purity, later in Lanka? Which dharma makes him succumb to a societal expectation instead of upholding his personal integrity, still later in Ayodhya? “You were car...
24 comments
Read more