The man who rejected 1 Crore against honesty

Meet The Man Who Had The Opportunity To Keep 1 Crore Rupees, Legally, Yet He Did Not!

Sudhakaran who barely earns Rs.10,000 every month working hard in his small shop, once gave away the opportunity to pocket Rs. 1 crore and also returned a gold chain to the police owing to his firm beliefs and value for honesty.

45 year-old K. Sudhakaran runs a little shop, selling sweets, juice, cold-drinks and lottery tickets, in a market in Kanhangad, a town in northern Kerala. This shop is the sole means of livelihood for his family of six, including a daughter who is physically challenged. He is up every morning, at around 4:30, and takes the train from his village to Kanhangad—a journey of more than two hours each way.

One morning, P. Ashokan, a regular customer of his, called him up and asked him to set aside ten lottery tickets for him. When Sudharakan learned that one of those tickets had won the first prize—a whopping ten million rupees, he rang up his father at once. “Call up Ashokan right away and give him the news!” his father told him.

Sudhakaran did as his father instructed. Ashokan could hardly believe his ears when he learnt what had happened!

Ashokan had not paid for the tickets. Nor had Sudhakaran told him the ticket numbers. And so, Sudhakaran didn’t have to tell him that one of the tickets that he had set aside for him had won the bumper prize. He could easily have pocketed the money had he wanted to—that wouldn’t have been considered illegal. Had he wished, he could have bagged the ten million rupee prize for himself.

When asked, Sudhakaran said “My father always told me that if you need to, you can even beg, but you must never snatch other people’s rights,”

The Gold Chain

A couple of months ago, Sudhakaran had found a gold chain while travelling in a train and handed it to the police, who managed to trace its owner!

This man could have been a millionaire had he not listened to his heart and his father and kept the prize-winning lottery ticket for himself instead. But he has no regrets at all about his decision. “I know what I did was just what I should have,” he says unhesitatingly.

It is indeed divine to know that men like Sudhakaran too exist in the world which is a true rarity. This incident therefore drives home a point that one does not need materialistic pleasure to lead a content and meaningful life.