The Lottery Prize Winner

In the last few stories, i have been trying to emulate Isaac Asimov. This time around, it is another Russian, Anton Chekhov.... For the ignoramus he is R.K.Narayan of Russia...

The Lottery Prize Winner

Yesterday, at Rahul’s party Aman, the most talkative chap of us all, was sitting in a corner lost in his thoughts. When asked if he was all right, he replied, “ yes, yes I am alright. But…” he stopped talking. It was kind of funny, because he is the sort of guy who talks more and thinks less. I wanted to laugh but my other friends were following the sympathetic route so I controlled my urge to laugh. He continued, “ Well guys, just this morning I heard a story about this person and I was thinking…. Rather let me first tell you the story and then I will enlighten you all with what I was thinking.”


This is the story as he told us:

It was getting late. Lala Dayaram decided that he would wait five more minutes to see if any customer turns up, and then close the shop. He had a small grocery store, the only one, in Bywater Colony, a lower middle class neighbourhood of Delhi, home to that class of people who have no money, power or influence. Just as he was getting ready to call it a day, he noticed someone standing in the shadow of the Banyan tree, on the far end of the street. Lala looked suspiciously towards the shadow. Theirs was a respectable, peace loving and god-fearing neighbourhood and strange people were not welcome in their locality, especially so late at night. As Lala was contemplating the ways to deal with this situation, the person started moving towards the shop. As he came closer to Lala’s shop, Lala recognized who the mysterious person was.

He was, of course, Charan Das. Charan used to live in this locality about 3 year’s back. He used to work as a typist in the income tax department and owned a single bedroom flat just in front of Lala’s shop. He had a steady job, the pay was sufficient, and work not too taxing and he had even saved a small sum of money. He was even thinking of moving to a more sociable colony and to better things in life, which included marriage. But he was not destined to have such an unremarkable life and it was Lala, who held the key to his destiny.

Lala along with catering to the grocery needs of the locality also sold lottery tickets, catering to the middle class dream of becoming rich. After all, it was the easiest way to become rich and it did not involve any kind of labour. So he had a steady income from this business. And Charan was among the highest contributors. He had an insatiable fetish for lottery. He used to buy tickets of all kinds of lottery, always 2 tickets because an astrologer had told him that 2 was his lucky number. He used to spend a big percentage of his salary to satisfy this passion.

The savings that he had built up were fast decreasing. So now he became desperate to win. He dreamed of winning a lottery, then buying a house, a car, marrying a beautiful girl and investing the rest of the money in shares. And then he will never have to live of stale rotis and cold dal, not have to live in a leaky house which wept everytime it rained, not have to wear 50 rupees shirt and a patched up jeans that had more patched than the actual cloth. And this wonderful dream made him even more desperate, but it was unable to dim his optimism.

Lala used to discourage him from spending so much on lottery. But Charan would just smile and say, “Lalaji, when I win a big lottery, you will not be saying this. And when I win I will give you 5 percent of the amount.” Lala would just smile at his conviction and wish him luck. Charan used to discuss his plans about what he would do when he becomes rich, with Lala. He used to talk with so much confidence that as if he had just won the morning lottery. Lala would say, ‘ but you have still not won the lottery, don’t count your chickens before they hatch.’ ‘So what if I have not won today, one of these days, I will be rich, one of these days.’

And the day did come. Lala distinctly remembered that day. Charan, as usual on his way back from office, came into his shop and said, “Lalaji, the usual 2 of playwin, 2 of national and 2 of UP.” He had replied, “ there is a new lottery with the first draw slated for tomorrow and they are giving a grand prize of 10 million rupees. I will put in 2 tickets of this free of cost along with the usual.”
The first winner of the new lottery was Charan Das. The same day he quit his job and moved onto better things in life. Of course, he did give Lala the promised 5 percent, but Lala had not seen him since that day. So he was pleasantly surprised to see his old friend.

Lala said, “Charan, haven’t seen you in a while. Where have you been and how is life?” Charan replied, “ Lalaji, there is not a lot to tell. You must have heard that after winning the lottery, I bought a flat in Vasant Vihar, bought a car, married this beautiful girl and invested in shares. I thought I was set for life. But then the share market crashed, my wife as I later found out was a woman of questionable morals and she ran away with our neighbour’s son, my car was stolen and I had to sell the house to settle all my debts. So now I have moved back into my old house and have taken up my old job.”
“You must be heart broken, but hopefully now everything will be as it used to be.” said the shopkeeper thoughtfully.
“Well yes, except a small detail, from now on I will take 3 of playwin, 3 of national and 3 of UP. You see my astrologer recommends that from now on 3 will be my lucky number. You will of course give me details of other new lotteries as and when they launch and this time I will give you 10 percent of my winnings.” said Charan Das cheerfully.
“Of course Mr. Das, I will do that” said the shopkeeper in a tone of sheer amazement.


Now Aman said, “I was thinking, how even after 5 months of mental and emotional turmoil, which had both joy and sorrow, hope and despair, love and hatred; Charan Das did not shy away from life. It would have easier for him to never buy another lottery ticket but he was still willing to take a chance. He was still willing to let fate decide his destiny and more importantly he was still happy and his secret of happiness was to live life to the full, come what may. If only, there were more people like him, world would have been a better place to live in.”

And we were all lost in out thoughts, about this secret of happiness, which many a wise sages have looked for but could not find and onto which we had stumbled upon, with the help of a lottery prize winner, who was always happy.