Sutured Dreams

There are many things in life that our education fails us to prepare for. We learn many things the hard way because of this. One of those difficult life lessons is on how to spot a fraud. You'll only learn this after being conned a couple of times. Knowing how to spot and subsequently avoid a fraud can save you a lot of money and prevent needless headaches. But unfortunately, even if you do spot a con, you may not be able to do anything about it. Especially when the fraud is family. A recent example from my life was an episode with Aunt May (name changed to protect identity). She called me one day out of the blue saying she urgently needed Rs 1 lakh to pay off a loan. She needed me to pay it for her that day itself. She then promised to pay back the money the very next day itself. Now there are many problems with this story.  Firstly, Rs 1 lakh is a lot of money. Especially for someone like me who wasn't paid on time for most of last year. Aunt May on the other hand, mad...

I grew up in relative comfort. My parents weren’t rich per se but there as always enough money for my basic needs. There used to be problems, like any household, but I never had to worry about basic stuff like having food on the table. You could say I was spoiled by having my parents take care of almost all of my needs. Fast forward to the middle of my internship and I was quickly finding out what poverty looked like. Nothing in my life till this point prepared me for what I had to deal with. My mother had passed away little over a year ago at that point and my father suddenly became bedridden after half his body was paralyzed by a stroke. My father had no savings and I was completely ignorant with regards to where my mother saved money and what the procedures were to get it transferred into my name. I desperately needed cash to take care of my father. It is difficult to convey the things that went through my mind during those few months. After not getting stipend for aro...