Who Owes Who?
Chandra Sen was the village money-lender. He lent money with a smile, and the poor borrowers, who knew next to nothing about such things as compound interest, slowly came to the dismal realization that the interest they had to pay came to a lot more than the money they had borrowed.
In the same village was a tough, hard-headed farmer named Bhimoo, who, sick of hearing so many tales of Chandra Sen’s greed, decided to teach the money-lender a lesson.
Waiting till a festival day when the village street would be thronged with people, Bhimoo went up to Chandra Sen’s stall and quietly asked the money-lender for a loan of a hundred rupees.
Chandra Sen, having heard of Bhimoo’s reputation, wanted no dealings with someone who might cause trouble. He shook his head sadly. “I am sorry, my friend,” he said with a sigh. “All my money is out on loans, so you will have to wait several months before I can oblige you.”
“Never mind,” replied Bhimoo. Then, scratching his head, he asked, “Tell me, how much is ten times five?”
“Fifty, of course,” snapped Chandra Sen.
“I am sure it’s sixty,” said Bhimoo, raising his voice.
Chandra Sen shouted in disgust. “Idiot, I tell you it’s only fifty.”
“And I say it’s sixty,” shouted Bhimoo.
Passers-by, hearing the argument, and always happy to witness a quarrel, stopped, and soon there was quite a crowd around Chandra Sen’s stall.
Turning to the crowd, Bhimoo cried desperately. “What injustice. This avaricious money-lender owes me sixty rupees. Now he swears he only owes me fifty.”
“You rogue,” Chandra Sen shouted, shaking his fist at Bhimoo. “I do not owe you any money.”
“Eh! That’s not true,” shouted a voice from the crowd. “We all heard you tell this man it was fifty and not sixty.”
Chandra Sen threw up his arms in despair, but before he could utter a word, Bhimoo said haughtily, “I am a poor man, so pay me the fifty rupees you say you owe.”
“That’s right, pay up,” shouted more than one voice from the crowd, which was now beginning to look menacing.
Chandra Sen, scared by the threatening attitude of the crowd, ruefully counted out fifty rupees, which Bhimoo quickly gathered up and went off chuckling to himself.
Chandra Sen sat and pondered over his loss. “Maybe,” he thought, “if I was not so hard on borrowers, people like Bhimoo would not want to cheat me in turn. So in future I had better loan money at more reasonable rates of interest.”