Chocolates, biscuits, lollipops, and toys were the items picked by Babloo while his Mom was busy selecting the provision for the month from a departmental store located nearby to his house. They both completed their selection of items planned to be purchased and entered the billing counter to pay the bill. Seetha was surprised to see the bill which amounted to Rs.1000/- which was more than the budget that she had. She wanted to return back some of the items picked up by Babloo, but she did not want to disappoint her only son and thought she could convince her hubby, Ramesh.
Babloo & Seetha reached home around 6:00 PM. Babloo wanted to eagerly open the boxes and re-look those items that he selected at the store. But Seetha asked him to do his homework first. Seetha was little worried about what Ramesh would say about the additional bill amount.
Ramesh reaches home around 7:00 PM. He was very tired and Seetha asked if he would like to have a cup of coffee. “Yes, that would really help”, said Ramesh.
“How was your day today?” Seetha casually asked Ramesh while entering the kitchen to prepare coffee.
Ramesh with a dull face said, “It was very tough… being a Sales Executive, I must be very aggressive to complete the Sales Target to save my Job in this Company. We need to save at least little more amount per month Seetha, it might help us for any emergency expenses”.
“I too agree Ramesh let’s do our best”, said Seetha.
“Did you get my shaving cream?”
“Yes, I did and have kept it in your room”.
“So, what was the bill amount for this month? hope that was within our budget” asked Ramesh with curiosity.
She was silent for a moment and asked him to have his coffee first. Ramesh after taking the first sip of coffee asked, “where is Babloo?”
“He is doing his homework in his room”, said Seetha while sitting in front of Ramesh to have her cup of coffee.
“You never answered to question… any problem?” Ramesh with little tense on his face asked Seetha.
“No… no issues at all. Only thing is the provision budget for this month has gone up by Rs.1000/-” answered Seetha.
“Oh no, I could have used this amount for this month’s Petrol. What did you buy?” Ramesh questioned Seetha with little anger on his face.
Seetha with her trembling low voice “Babloo had some extra snacks and sweets this time and I did not want to disappoint him”.
Ramesh called Babloo and scolded him with bitter words and started advising him. “Babloo you should be more responsible. You are now in grade 6 and should understand the value of money. Do you know how difficult it is to run around in the hot sun to bag my sales orders? If I don’t complete my Target I won’t even get my pay for this month. Hope you will not repeat this mistake again”.
Babloo could not continue his homework and went to bed without even having his dinner.
The next day the only voice which ran into Babloo’s mind was his Father’s harsh words. Babloo had one strong question in his mind – “Is it so complex and difficult to earn money?”
4 Weeks passed by after this incident. One evening Babloo was doing his homework as usual. Ramesh entered the house around 7:00 PM. The moment Ramesh entered the house, Babloo ran towards his father with lots of excitement and happiness on his face. Ramesh asked Babloo “you look so happy today. Did anything great happen in your School? Did you get any prize?” Even Seetha was not aware of why Babloo was so excited. After few seconds Babloo pulled about 10 notes of Rs. 100/- each and handed over to his Dad.
The moment Ramesh saw the amount, his face got totally red and his anger went to the peak. He immediately gave a big blow on Babloo’s face and asked, “Where did you get this amount from? Did you take it from your Mom’s purse? Tell me the truth now”. Babloo was not able to manage the pain, he burst out and ran into the arms of his Mom. Babloo was silent for all the questions asked by his Mom and Dad. He was just weeping as he could not bear the pain out of the blow that he got from his Dad.
After a couple of hours, all three of them finished their dinner and were getting ready to go to bed. Seetha now politely asked Babloo. “Babloo come on now tell me about where did you get this amount from?” Babloo hesitantly answered his mom. “Mom, do you remember I used to go to my friend’s house every weekend to play along with him? and you gave me the pocket money of Rs. 20 every weekend.”
“Yes, I do” Seetha answered.
“My friend and I bought chart papers and some watercolors to work on the creative artwork. We used to work on the artwork on Saturdays, Sundays and sell that artwork to nearby fancy stores. As our work was really appreciated by the shop-keepers, we were very lucky to get good margin for our artwork and that’s how I made that thousand rupees”
Seetha was so shocked to hear this from Babloo and hugged him with tears on her face. Ramesh too overheard this conversation and came running to Babloo, hugged him tight and could not control his tears running out of his eyes. Ramesh and Seetha were very proud to see the quality of entrepreneurship in Babloo and were very happy to know that he could now understand the value of money.
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