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Rup was exultant to see his name flashing on the outside of his fountain pen. He paid the man, and rushed off to school, eager to show his classmates.
One classmate told him, “All right, the gold glitters, but what about the pen? Does it still write?"
Rup opened the pen to write. To his dismay, he saw that the nib and pump were gone. The man had stolen away the valuable inner parts of the pen.
"Well, just as I thought,” his friend pointed out, “you are left with only the outer shell. Without the inside stuff, the mechanism, of what use is it? It's only a name!" .
Rup saw how vulnerable he had been. He felt cheated.
It was not the only occasion in which he was fooled. When he was a young lad of nearly sixteen years, he spent many after school hours helping his father sell cloth at his shop.
Because Rup's father was honest and fair, the townspeople trusted him. In an emergency people would come with an ornament to mortgage in exchange for its worth in rupees. Each borrower would receive a receipt guaranteeing the safety of his ornament.
Then Chhogalal would make a packet of the ornament, label it, and mark it with the date of the transaction. The person would come back and claim his packet when he was able to buy it back. All the packets remained locked up in a strongbox in one corner of the shop.
One Saturday morning, a long-bearded yogi happened to come by the shop. He addressed Rup, “My son, give me alms, won't you? Pay your respects to this yogi of miracles. Give me one and I will give you ten.”
"What do you mean by ten?” Rup asked him.
“Do you have one rupee?” the old yogi inquired. Rup handed one rupee over to him.
The man opened his palm and Rup saw ten rupees there.
Naturally Rup became curious to know how he made ten from one.
"How did you do that?” he begged him to explain. “Oh, I have so many powers, siddhis,” the yogi replied
24
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