435. Vikram's Spending Spree!

"Dad! I am going to Mahabaipuram with my friends. I need ten thousand rupees" said Vikram.

"Why do you need ten thousand rupees for that?" asked his father Sivam.

"I have to give a party to my friends for my birthday."

"Your birthday was three months before. At that time, you had given a party to your friends, spending thirty thousand rupees" said Vikram's mother Leela.

"Yes, mom. But, some of my friends who were not in town at that time were left out. They are asking me to give them a party."

"There is no need for that. Tell them that they could join the party you would be giving for your next birthday" said Leela.

"Okay. I will give you five thousand rupees. Manage within that amount" said Sivam.

Vikram took the cash given by his father and left.

"Vikram has been spending a lot. You have to be strict with him. He has been taking money from me too. But I don't give him more than a couple of hundred rupees" said Leela.

"Leave it. He is young. Since we are well off, he is spending money liberally. He wants to impress his friends, by taking them to picnics, giving them parties in high class restaurants etc. Let us give him some leeway. I am sure that he will learn to be prudent, in course of time" said Sivam.

After about a week, when Leela was not home, Vikram came to Sivam and told him, "Dad! When we had been to Mahabhalipuram last week, I was taking photos on my friend's mobile phone. The phone slipped from my hand, fell on a rock and broke. It was an expensive phone. My friend had bought it for twenty thousand rupees. I have to buy him a new phone. If mom learns about this, she will lambast me. That's why I am telling you this, when mom is not here."

"Your mom is right. As if wasting money by going on a trip to Mahabhalipuram with your friends and spending money on lavish parties is not enough, you have now broken your friend's expensive phone and are asking me for money to buy him a new phone! And I have to shell out twenty thousand rupees for that! Okay, I will withdraw cash from the ATM and give you. Hereafter, don't ask me for money!" said Sivam, angrily.

After two days, Leela told her husband, "I happened to meet a friend of Vikram in a shop. He says there was no Mahabhalipuram trip. Vikram had lied to us. He should have used the money he got from you, for some other purpose.

Sivam was shocked to hear this. "I will ask Vikram about this, after he returns home from the college, in the evening" he said.

The realization that Vikram had taken twenty thousand rupees from him by telling a story of having broken his friend's phone at Mahabhalipuram made him even more perturbed.

Sivam toyed with the idea of telling this to his wife, but decided not to, thinking that she would come to know of it, when he questioned Vikram in the evening.

However, Sivam didn't get the chance to talk to Vikram that evening. That evening, he received a phone call from the police station that Vikram was arrested when he, while returning home from the college, was spotted buying drugs from a drug dealer.

Thirukkural

Section 2

Materialism

Chapter 44
Condemnation of Faults

Verse 435 (in Tamil):

varu munnark kAvAdhAn vAzhkkai eri munnar
vaiththURu pOlak kedum.

Meaning:

The life of a person, who doesn't safeguard himself before the happening of a wrongful act, will be destroyed like straw kept in front of the fire.

(This is the English version of the Tamil story 'tholaipEsiyil vandha seydhi' by the same author.)

Verse 466
Verse 434