A man of an Indian descent stopped me in my tracks as my colleagues and I decided to cross the overhead bridge to take a taxi back to the office after a client’s meeting.
He stopped me as I was making my way down a steep stairs, asking me an innocent question on directions in English. As I knew where and what he was asking about, I suggested that he should just take the bridge and walk on the other side of the road across from where we were standing.
He continued asking if I really knew where it was (I did!), and, if I thought it was going to be quite a distance for walking, because he would rather take a taxi or a motorbike. He continued on telling me that he had been walking around for hours to look for the place right after he got off the plane, and was now too tired to walk in the heat. I could empathise with his predicament – he must have been quite spent! I pondered a little, and told him it would be quite walkable as it would be a challenge to take a taxi due to the horrible traffic; a motorbike could work, although u-turning wouldn’t be as easy as it isn’t not allowed.
He then said that he thought he should walk in our direction, and perhaps take a motorbike. He then voluntarily told me that he is a doctor and has come from a long way from India (and I was thinking to myself that information was irrelevant to me). I told him that he could do that, but if he wanted to get there faster, walking was a better choice.
He then gave me a verbal diarrhea telling me that his knees were hurting and they were problematic. He continued on telling me that he had to visit his old and ailing grandfather and he needed to make time quick. By now, alarm bells were ringing in my head. The story seemed all too familiar for the good old scam, and I wondered if I happened to chance upon the very infamously classic scam of the world for the very first time in my life.
Just as that thought of him potentially telling me more sob stories and eventually asking for a loan in the amount of a few thousand bath so he could pay for his grandfather’s surgery and that he would swear he’d return the money if I gave him my address or bank account number popped in my head, he asked me nicely if I could please spare him some change.
The words scam, scam, scam exploded in my head, my gut telling me that I was about to get swindled right in front of my nose. He was very well-dressed, this guy – tie, blazer, laptop bag and a piece of luggage; a possible profile of a scam artist or a real business man in distress. In a split second, my mind went on over-drive thinking that he might perform a David Blaine on me. But, he was asking me for a CHANGE. A change of 10 or 20 baht.
For a moment, I was caught off-guard. Asking for a mere 10 or 20 baht hardly sounded like a scam, isn’t it? But it was just like what all those illusionists would do too!
As soon as my colleagues heard the word “baht”, they hurried past him and urged me to move on. I should have just shooed him away and walked off, too, but in my mind, a 10 or 20 baht was not going to make me a bankrupt. My heart spoke, telling me that perhaps, just perhaps, he really did just need a change and I happened to look approachable (or scammable!) for him to try his luck on.
So instead of listening to my head, I quickly fished out my wallet while I held on to my handbag real tight, making sure that it was out of his reach. I then said pointedly to him, “You know what. Here, take this 40 baht. 20 is hardly enough to get you to where you are going, and I could only hope your need is real.”
With a look of genuine surprise or a look of surprise that he had practiced very hard on to appear convincing, , he profusely thanked me and had almost refused the extra 20.
Whatever his intention was at that time, I decided that I was going to look past that. Maybe he was trying to scam and maybe he really needed it, and whatever it was, I was not going to judge a random stranger asking me for a 20 baht nicely.
My colleagues looked at me as if they saw a ghost, telling me that I had been cheated. I shrugged it off, telling them that it was alright, and that it was between him and his god(s) or his conscience (assuming he has had any). It was a change I could spare and I had nothing to lose.
I thought that it was just a small gesture of paying it forward.
In case you are wondering, no he was not at all good-looking. Far from it.
