A Tenner and a Two-Rupee

Barber Vishwanath was busy shaping up his customer in his small kiosk underneath the big banyan tree near the village chaupal. Ramu was again at his doorstep with his outstretched palm seeking the usual two-rupee coin. “I have not seen a boy more stupid than this, just see the fun and decide for yourself, whether I am right,” said Vishwanath in a tone barely audible to anyone other than Vijay, the customer. Ramu stood there quietly, his eyes beseeching a favour. Vishwanath extended both of his palms with a 10-rupee coin placed on the left and a two-rupee coin on the right. Ramu picked up the one on the right and vanished behind the bamboo grove and landed straight at the corner of the pond where stood the ice cream seller. “Didn’t I tell you that no one would be more stupid than this boy? I guess such dullards have no scope in this world. They would remain where they are. Unless they grow up wiser, nothing can change  their fate. And in case of Ramu, intelligence and wisdom have just bypassed him completely. He doesn’t even know that the Rs. 10 coin can him fetch more than the Rs. 2. It would be better if his parents pressed him into manual labour at a construction sites. No use sending him to school,” Vishwanath kept mumbling all the while. Music from the scissors  had stopped. Vijay dusted off the kurta and emerged from the thick canopy. He peered around. He saw Ramu chomping on an ice cream bar while looking at the ducks in the pond. “It is countless times that  you were asked to choose between a tenner and a two-rupees coin and every time you picked the latter. What’s the matter? Are you so stupid not to know which coin would fetch you more”? Vijay unleashed a volley of queries. Ramu said: “Uncle! I do it because, I know the day I will pick up the tenner, the game would come to an end”. oral: A real stupid individual is one who deals with others imagining them to be fools.