Tandarin

You may not pause for a moment to think when a domestic help turns to you for five hundred rupees, but when there are larger amounts involved and there are closer relationships at stake, it becomes a difficult choice between ‘yes’ and ‘no’. It’s not that there isn’t a willingness to help. It’s that there’s a fear of your hard-earned money being misused that sometimes holds us back.

It’s easier to loan money to people who obviously need it, who will make an effort to return it to you. But there are people who live off lent money. These are absolute and habitual borrowers.

They will not break their fixed deposits but will expect you to cut corners and lend you an unreasonable sum of money. They take advantage of the fact that by virtue of your inability to turn down a request, they can extract money from you and splurge it on unimportant things.

If you need the money so badly, how do you justify cocktail and luncheon parties? Is that what you’re borrowing for, so that you can put up a show before the rest of the world that everything is fine with your bank balance? To such borrowers, saying ‘no’ should be mandatory. They are leeches that will bleed you and you need to shrug them off before you are bound to bleed.

But even when someone desperately requires money, how much would you be willing to lend and how many times? Would you let your financial planning go awry to help someone? Would you be happy trimming on your own expenses to accommodate a loan for someone else?

It’s a tough call to make sometimes. And frankly, come to think of it, how can people bring themselves to borrow stuff they don’t  need. If you can’t afford to spend lakhs of rupees on your son or daughter’s wedding, then don’t. If you do not have the cash to buy a property and you do not want to pay the interest rate on a bank loan, don’t buy that property. Why must you borrow to buy what you can’t afford? Why??

Remember, when we were in school and forgot to take some essentials to class, the teachers’ favourite retort used to be, “Beg, borrow or steal.” Borrowing seemed pretty easy then, because returning a pencil, paper or a map was also easy enough. But now, neither begging nor borrowing nor does stealing seem a feasible option to me. I’d much rather not have what I cannot have, as long as I have only what I must.

Sooner or later your credibility is at stake and it’s just not worth it.