The Merchant of Putiary

Shakespeare wrote ‘The Merchant of Venice’ about five hundred years ago.

Venice, famous for its exotic water routes that cut across the city and attracts tourists from all corners of the world for memorable gondola rides was the key location of Shakespeare’s story.

Putiary being a densely populated locality of South Kolkata stands nowhere near Venice with a non-navigating canal stagnant with dirty, insect-infested water at different places of its stretch, network of constricted roads often congested with traffics of various kinds and pedestrians of all ages, and a centrally located busy, compact market that houses shops, vendors, retailers and hundreds of buyers from morning till later part of the night sparing few hours in the afternoon when the merchants freak on post-lunch fiesta.

But the story of our Merchant of Putiary is a bit different.

He was not as rich as Antanio of Venice, a very much married man with a family and neither has a bosom buddy like Basanio.

We will call him Basu in this story.

Basu had started a grocery shop some forty years ago in Putiary taking loans from a handful of his well-wishers.

The whole world changed in forty years. The gallant waves of change struck Putiary as well. Putiary has recently become a proud receiver of Kolkata’s metro-rail services. Steady influx of people over years brought boom in local real estate business, so to find piece of vacant land you need a meticulous inspection. Modernized facilities like fast food points, spas, gyms, sophisticated health-clinics, digital and multiplex shops made quick entries and hit popularity chart sharply.

What didn’t lead to any changes in Putiary in the last forty years was Basu’s grocery shop.

It was in same shabby state like before. The old, shabby racks built during the shop’s inception period still somehow held the loose and packed food stuff. Excess goods were dumped on the floor. Basu had hardly any place to sit comfortably inside the shop and seen to be always squeezed amidst the stuff. He was still seen chewing his unsold cookies time to time. Rats remained his constant companion except their sizes becoming bigger and scarier over years.

Basu generally opened his shop at the odd hours of the afternoon when the rest of the market enjoying the nap. The shop was open again around midnight. Surprisingly he had no dearth of customers. Most of them bought items on credit. A few out of them were actually those who had given him handy loans to open the shop. For them buying good on credit was a kind of preferred arrangement to get the loaned amount back slowly and steadily. Fortunately none of them were like Shylock and gave him loans without glimpse of interests.

Rest of the time Basu moved around the customers’ houses to collect money, ready home delivery of food-stuff and also manage additional loans for buying goods from the big market of Barabazar during financial crunches.

His business ran in an unexplained no profit no loss way to at least give him and family the vital three meals of the day. His honesty, simplicity and righteous earned respect and love of the local people which were solely responsible for the viability of his unique grocery shop.

Who says honesty is no more the best policy in the business?

Basu never cheated his customers by supplying lesser amount of goods than quoted weights. He even added more to them. He left no stones unturned to clear his debts as much as possible from his hard-earned daily income. Additionally, he used to help others whenever they were in trouble.

His stronger human qualities were key to somehow put together his fragile entrepreneurship.

Basu was inherently a happy man. He didn’t mind at all that his business couldn’t flourish in all these years where his contemporary retailers of Putiary made already big in their lives.  His wife often poked him with harsh words which he most of time overheard. They had an elder daughter and younger son. Basu was able to get his daughter married to a lower division clerk of the Excise Department of the Government. The boy was in his late teen, a school drop out by choice who spent lazy hours at home after chatting and net surfing in his android phone. Basu neither minded that. A well-known fortune-teller once told him that his son will accumulate huge wealth one day. Basu was a staunch believer of astrological predictions. He firmly believed his son will soon lend his shoulder to his sagging business and bring phenomenal growth and prosperity. It’s just a matter of time.

In the meantime a known local ricksaw-puller Haru approached him for immediate and urgent help. Haru’s two-year old son did need an operation to rectify a serious birth �"defect of his heart which costed around five hundred thousand rupees. Haru fell down at his feet with tearful eyes. ‘Help me Basuda, or my small boy will die.’ That was enough to melt Basu’s golden heart. ‘Let me see what I can do for your small boy. He must live a good life after all.’ He promptly moved to Beni Saha, a big, fat local businessman and asked for a loan of five hundred thousand rupees. Beni Saha agreed in one condition. ‘I will take over your shop if the amount is not paid back within one year.’ He said. Basu didn’t think twice to comply and signed the agreement paper.

His wife jumped over him after gathering the story of Basu’s unprecedented charity.

‘You already have loans of some good hundred thousand rupees in the market and you are adding another five hundred thousand to it for somebody else? How can you be such stupid? Do you believe you can ever repay the amount to Beni Saha in one year time? He will capture your shop and drag us to the roads to beg for living. You are so irresponsible and stupid! Your family never came to your thought for a moment?’

His daughter and son-in-law called him up to say it was a blunderous decision that will soon ruin the entire family.

Basu laughed all of them off as usual with his glowing, careless spirit.

His son Barun was the only person not to spare a word on his father’s daring decision.

Meanwhile Haru got his child operated. The hole in the left heart was bridged successfully and child was safe. Haru and his wife offered sincere gratitude to Basu. Haru’s chapter was hereby closed in the story.

Basu’s life didn’t change a bit after that. Beni Saha off and on sent him reminders to pay the loan back within the agreed timeline. He obliged and remained cool without knowing how the loan can be cleared from his meagre income.

But you know what? Miracles still happens even today.

After about a couple of months Barun suddenly expressed his desire to help his father in the business.

Basu was as if waiting for this moment. He kept Barun in the shop and himself moved around to customer’s residences and Barabazar. Shop’s opening hours were automatically extended. Barun, as he observed happened to be a cool and sensible vendor with the ability to impress the customers. The sudden upsurge in the shop’s sale was noticeable soon. Barun, sidewise initiated his mobile SIM card venture after taking franchise of several local dealers. The number of customers rose drastically. Barun’s success story ignited interest in his mother’s mind as well.  Sumita, Basu’s wife who was an adept stitch-maker started collecting stitching orders from the local garment factories. Soon she had to hire two more women to meet the mammoth needs of the factories.

At the end of one year Basu and his family were left with a couple of hundred thousand more from their profit even after repaying Beni Saha and majority of their age-long debts.

This is a straight forward, simple story without dramatic turn and twist, enough to dishearten the readers quite a bit.

But the turning point was Basu’s decision of helping Haru and eventually taking loan from Beni Saha under a very challenging condition.

 

‘You know what?’ Basu told me later on. ‘The fortune-teller told me one more thing. I didn’t disclose that in the story earlier.’

‘What’s that Basuda?’ I asked him.

‘The fortune-teller suggested that my son’s attitude will never change till I lift major risk in my life. That was the major reason behind my decision to take loan from Beni Saha under a dicey proposition. I thought it would produce a good chance to push my son to the new venture of life. You see, it clicked! God is great!’

We believe in destiny in various forms and degrees. But Basu’s faith did never fade out from the predictions he was repeatedly fed by his most trusted fortune-teller.

Today he is enjoying the fruit.  

 

 

 

Reviews

[Leslie Philibert]

Sugata writes very well, and I really enjoy the background. Great.

[SUGATA M]

You always inspire me Leslie. Thank you so much for your kindness and support. All the best.

[Coyote Poetry]

I enjoyed this tale. I liked the father. His belief held strong and all things fell into place. I like the ending. He kept his belief and held tightly to them. Thank you for sharing the outstanding story my friend.
Coyote

[SUGATA M]

Thank you for all your motivational words which push me to more quality writing.

[Coyote Poetry]

You did well and you are welcome.