Two Sides of the Coin

Two very different lives were led by two men in the very centre of a city that never sleeps.
Raghav Mehta was the owner of the tallest building in the town. He was a self-made millionaire by the age of thirty-five and he carried himself like a man who had fought and beaten fate. His suits were made in Milan, his watch ran precisely more than a yearly salary of most. He luncheoned with bigwigs and bargained over boardroom tables that reeked of imported oak and high priced perfume.

Mohan Das lived a few blocks away, under the rusted bridge by the old station. He sold samosas in a cart, which was held together with wood and hope. Most days he wore the same shirt, hand washed at the pump. His ambitions were modest and honest; a dry roof, a son in health, perhaps some day enough money to send that son to school.

They passed one another every morning by the station. Raghav in his shiny black automobile and Mohan with his cart in position. they never said a word. One dwellt above the clouds. The other dwelt in the dust and diesel of ground level.

But, like it so frequently happens, fate chose to toss the coin.

Raghav was once running late to a meeting, on an unusually windy morning. He got out of his car, hurried, in a hurry, coat swinging behind him. His wallet had come out of his pocket without his feeling it, and lay with a dull thud at the side of the station steps.

Mohan noticed it afar off. He glanced round--no other person had observed it. He took it up, turned the leather. Notes laden with zeros. More than he could make in six months.

His fingers were trembling a little.

He stared in the direction in which the man had walked. He might retain it. None would be any wiser.

But his heart did know.
Mohan got his cart and ran down the street, forcing his way through the crowd. He described Raghav as talking on the phone at the cafe close to the office building. Mohan came up softly, with his wallet.

Tapping him on the elbow, he said, “Saab.” You have dropped this.

Raghav looked round, astonished. his gaze alighted on the wallet. He was caught staring a moment, not alone by the gesture, but by the earnestness of the man.

He opened it up. It had all there.

What did you mean by returning this? Honest curiosity Raghav inquired.

Mohan shrugged. Because it belongs not to me. And since, you see, should I lose anything, I would want some one to give it back to me also.”

Raghav made no answer. Just stared. And then he smiled, slowly, as he had not smiled in years, not a business smile, not a politico smile, but a softer thing.

He said, Wait here.

He was back a couple of minutes later with a brown envelope.

No reward, Mohan hastened to say, and drew back. “I wouldn't have done it for that.”

Raghav “It is not a reward,” Raghav said, thrusting the envelope into his hands. It is a investment. that is a good man.”

There was money in there to re-cart and repair the roof and--who knows--send his son to school.

Raghav came back frequently in the following weeks. Not to see how his investment is doing, but the samosas, the chai, and the silent chat. He stated that Mohan was like his father who used to sell fruits in a roadside stall until life tossed his own coin.

They lived in different worlds, and that instant bound them together, not in the richness of the purse, but in the richness of the heart.

It is not about which side of the coin you end up on because.

It is what you decide to do when the coin is in your hands.