Fixed Deposits
Fixed Deposits
The Cost of Courtesy
When Asoka Maama arrived in Dubai, he called Denzil from a payphone just beyond the terminal’s exit, the handset slightly warm, faintly sticky from use. He had written the number on the back of his boarding pass, pressing down hard enough that the digits left a faint imprint on the paper’s reverse.
Denzil answered quickly. His voice was calm, measured, as though the call had been expected. He asked about the flight, the luggage, whether everything had gone smoothly. Behind the conversation, a mechanical hum — perhaps of an air conditioner rose and fell. Traffic moved like a low current behind sealed glass.
Denzil had been in Dubai for several years now. Recently married, employed at an international bank, always in brightly colored ties and crisply pressed shirts that made him seem a bit yuppy, more settled than his years. There was something practised in the way he spoke — confident, refined, already aligned with the tempo of the city.
Asoka Maama listened quietly, nodding, though Denzil couldn’t see him. Asoka Maama glanced at his suitcase beside him — the handle frayed, the airline tag curled like parchment. He had come to work as an accountant for PanAm, the American airline. It was a respectable post, the kind of job that held weight in conversation back home. But standing in the heat, with the sun bearing down and the sidewalk already radiating warmth, the words felt distant, rehearsed — meant more for others than for himself.
The city unfolded around him, bright and unfamiliar, vast in its indifference. He would begin here. Slowly. Alone, at first.
He had known Denzil since the boy’s school days in Colombo. Denzil had once attended his elder brother’s wedding. In the years that followed, there were brief visits, shared meals, overnight stays. Denzil remembered the way his mother prepared the spare bed, remembered how he had admired Asoka Maama’s quiet intelligence — how different he seemed from the other adults, how he spoke of books and university and a world beyond their street.
Now, a decade had passed. They had not seen one another since Denzil left for Dubai, a few years after that wedding of Asoka Maama’s elder brother. But the bond endured, as some relationships do, held in place by the scaffolding of shared memory.
Denzil was no longer a schoolboy. He had a growing career, a new wife, and a Mitsubishi Pajero. He picked up Asoka Maama from the airport, drove him through the city of mirrored buildings and neat avenues, and dropped him at the Astoria Hotel without fuss. Then he returned to work.
Within two months, Asoka Maama brought over his wife and two daughters. He rented a cramped apartment on Al Mina Road — peeling walls, a ceiling fan that sputtered more than it turned. Though his job entitled him to a housing allowance, he chose not to use it and pocket the cash. When Denzil asked why, he explained his decision in terms of simplicity, of principle. He spoke of a life without excess, a stoic sensibility. But Denzil couldn’t help but wonder if the reason was more practical than philosophical.
Still, there was something admirable — and quietly troubling — in that modesty. A refusal to claim what was already his or live his life fully.
Asoka Maama began visiting Denzil at the bank and at home. Denzil regarded him with the fondness one reserves for family. Soon, Asoka Maama extended an invitation to his own home.
Before the visit, he asked if Denzil could lend him five thousand dirhams, just for a month. Denzil agreed without hesitation. He withdrew the amount from the bank and handed it over.
Their home was sparse, dignified, and deeply Sinhala. His wife wore a traditional dress, the kind rarely seen outside Sri Lanka. The daughters, around seven or eight, wore long, ankle-length dresses and spoke only in Sinhala, never in English. There was a gentleness in the way they behaved toward each other, so gentle it struck Denzil as almost unnatural, rehearsed.
Lunch was simple: white rice, vegetables, no meat. A vegetarian meal served with care.
On a subsequent visit, the conversation took an unexpected turn. Asoka Maama began to speak of Sai Baba, the Indian spiritual leader. He recounted stories of miracles — how sacred ash transformed into gold, how a Rolex watch had materialized in the palm of a devotee’s hand. He spoke with calm certainty, his tone more documentary than devotional, as if he were reporting events beyond question.
Denzil listened quietly, uncertain whether to nod or challenge. There was no trace of irony in Asoka Maama’s voice, only a deep, immovable faith in the impossible.
As he spoke, his wife moved wordlessly across the room, stopping before a framed image of Sai Baba hung prominently on the living room wall. She lit a stick of incense and waved it in slow, reverent circles, the smoke curling upward, wreathing the face of the guru in fragrant mist.
The weeks passed. Then a month. Still, there was no mention of the borrowed money. Denzil waited, telling himself perhaps it had slipped his mind. But eventually, he had to call — twice — and visit Asoka Maama’s office.
What he learned surprised him. Asoka Maama admitted that he had money in fixed deposits all along, but had chosen not to break them. Instead, he had used Denzil’s money — unwilling to lose the interest his own savings would have otherwise earned.
Denzil didn’t know what to say. It struck him as a strangely calculated choice, to preserve one’s own wealth at the expense of another’s goodwill.
He asked for the money to be returned. It was, eventually, without argument. But the act left something unsettled in Denzil — a quiet disappointment, the realisation that, for some, borrowing from a friend was simply another way to avoid sacrifice. A habit, perhaps. A kind of thrift that made no room for courtesy.
In that moment, Denzil understood something not just about Asoka Maama, but about a wider pattern — how, among their own, there was often an ease in asking, a comfort in inconveniencing those closest. A method of acquiring what one needed without ever having to let go of what one already had.
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