This one is simply unbelievable, and it happened just ten twelve days ago.
It was morning hours and our watchmen and support staff were just arriving in the office for morning shift. Our Office is a big 14 acre campus and one of our staff member found an office briefcase thrown near the compound wall. Curiously he called the watchmen to see whose briefcase it was. Cautiously the bag was brought in the watchmen’s cabin for closer look. Who will bell the cat was the question though.
In this age of terror strikes and bomb blasts, the possibility of any evil design was not a distant preposition altogether. Our Officers or Staff members would have arrived after about one and a half hour. The impatient among the assembled staff member dared to take the risk. He slowly opened the briefcase, only to find some documents, loose papers, diary etc. No valuables or cash etc was found. Two three guys did recheck 🙂 The person’s identity was established from the identity card. So the assembly presumed that this was a case of robbery and the robbers threw the bag inside our campus as they did not find anything inside, or may be they have emptied the valuables inside.
The guys then decided to don the role of good Samaritans and decided to call the person and inform him that his bag was found. So the bag’s owner was found, the man profoundly thanked the guy who called him, noted down the address and told he would be there in half an hour. They all handed the bag to the watchmen to hand it over to the guy, the Watchmen too had a second close look at the bag. Found nothing but papers scattered all over.
He did arrive shortly after in his car, introduced himself to the watchmen. The caretaker of the office told him where the bag was found and how they located his address. The man thanked him and other colleagues. He then informed them that his bag was lifted by thieves when he was in court for a hearing. He had some important papers in it. He requested the Caretaker to accompany him to the local police station, where he had lodged a missing complaint. The Caretaker went to the Police Station, gave the statement and the case was resolved. The owner of the briefcase as a gesture of thanks, dropped the Caretaker back to the Office.
This was the time when he told the truth, he told he was a much worried man, as the briefcase possessed good amount of cash in it, the first thing he did when he got hold of the briefcase from the staff members was to check the cash. He then removed all the maze of papers, files and below it was carefully stashed half a million rupee notes!!! He had to hand it over for some business deal.
All the guys felt short changed. They felt envious of the luck of the guy. The bag changed hands from Robbers to Office Staffers to Watchmen. Nobody could locate the money stashed. Leave alone the robbers, could anybody have shown that kind of honesty or humanity to return the cash, if it was found, i doubted. Yes there are people who do so and we have heard stories of their noble deeds. But this creed is fast losing ground.
The briefcase finally reached its rightful owner with all the valuables. May be some might have felt, so near, yet so far 🙂
Vijay's Space 
Hey, my jaw just dropped to the floor! Good one!
Thank you Umashankarji 🙂
Something sad in the statement ” May be some might have felt, so near, yet so far”, for this implies they would have taken the money, had they known, and thus are all dishonest thieves without an honest bone amongst them. Here it has been known to let a man “hold” a hundred dollars – a stranger – and his honesty trusted, did not break it. Not always, of course!
But it is strange . . . and I felt good about it (your story) until the end, where (it seems) everyone’s greed would have overtaken their sense of honesty – had they known. . . .
Dear Jeffssong,
Thank you for your comment. It is sad but a reality that the poor guy might have hardly got his money back had it been found by anyone other than him. Honesty is a rare commodity nowadays, especially in times where we hear nothing but scams almost on routine basis. In our culture there is a saying Yatha Raja tatha Praja, which means the people behave like their rulers. When our rulers are engulfed in amassing wealth through fraudulent ways, what will the people hapless people do ? No I am not justifying dishonest ways, but it is somehow gaining acceptance.
Its a disheartening picture and age to live. Anyways thank you for your encouraging comments
Vijay
” In our culture there is a saying Yatha Raja tatha Praja, which means the people behave like their rulers.” I have also seen in the Asian culture the attitude of “What is in it for ME?” in terms of gain. There are no ‘favors’, just what is owed and what is gained.
And yet here I see a resentment by some of our ‘rulers’ when they misbehave, as well a a public demand that they behave. Our system is not perfect, but over time it has much improved. A lot of the old small town crony-ism is gone and hiring ones friends or family is often frowned upon. Of course politicians find many ways around the system or to use the system, as well as the poor. And bribery is not often used; it would be frowned upon as poor taste at best, and is often refused, for the person knows they can be reported to the law. So it is much different here. People tend to ‘behave’ more when it comes to certain types of things, while misbehaving with others (hence our higher gun rate – over 80% of the population – and the accompanying murders and crime). America can be a kind of a strange place to be some of the time – but I guess due to the diversity and sets of expectations, it is different as well. Just guessing, anyway. wry smile.