One by one, each worker failed to meet with the businessman’s satisfaction. They never received the money that was due to them. Why did this occur? Two days before the end of the month, he would tell each worker to do something absolutely absurd and impossible. To one he would say, “You have to run twenty miles to the next village and pick up a parcel and then run the twenty miles back again.” Some poor workers could not walk even half a mile, let alone run twenty miles! To others he would say, “You have to swim in the river for three hours without stopping.” On one occasion, he even gave a worker a tabla and told him, “You have to play this tabla to my satisfaction. If I do not like your performance, then you will not receive any salary from me.”
So these kinds of demands he used to make just before the end of each month. In that way, he did not have to pay anybody’s salary. But his fate was about to change. It happened that a very smart young man came to work for him. This young man worked very, very hard. One day before the end of the month, the rogue-businessman said to him, “Look, I am giving you two glass tumblers. One is very small and one is quite large. Now you have to put the large one inside the small one.”
The young man took the larger tumbler and dashed it on the ground. Then he collected all the little pieces of glass and put them inside the small tumbler. The businessman was furious and gave the young man a punch. He demanded that the young man pay for the broken tumbler. He even threatened to kill the young man for his insolence.
The poor worker had not even received his salary and here he was expected to pay for the broken tumbler. He said, “I have not received the salary that you promised me when I began working here.”
The businessman said, “Why should I give you a salary when, on the last day of the month, you could not perform your job satisfactorily?”
The young man was compelled to leave the place empty-handed. He went to the village judge and placed the case before him. The judge summoned the wealthy businessman and said to him, “Why are you not giving this young man his salary? He has worked for 29 days prior to this.”
The businessman replied, “Why should I give him a salary? I told him that I would pay him only if he worked for the whole month to my satisfaction. On the last day he deliberately broke an expensive glass tumbler belonging to me. It is he who should pay me!”
The village judge asked the young man, “Why did you break it?”
The young man replied, “He asked me to put the big tumbler inside the smaller one. I could not do it without breaking the big one. He tells all the workers to fulfil this kind of impossible demand just before the end of each month so that he does not have to pay them. I realised long ago that he is insane, but if I started spreading the news in the village, who would believe me? That is why I decided to do something striking. I wanted his case to come to the attention of the authorities. So many workers before me have suffered because he has not paid them one rupee. It is time he was brought to justice.”
The village judge said to the wealthy businessman, “Right in front of me, you have to give this young man his salary plus a substantial bonus, or I will throw you into jail!”
So the businessman had to give a very large sum of money to the young man. From that day on, nobody would work for him because they all knew in advance that he was an unpardonable rogue!From:Sri Chinmoy,Amusement I enjoy, enlightenment I study, part 5, Agni Press, 1998
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