Thieves Conniving On Obituaries

This is a true story and I will keep it short.

Early August we had a major tragedy in our family with my father departing this world. A simple, affectionate man, even on his hospital ICCU bed, with an oxygen mask on, was respectfully folding his hands whenever he saw a visitor in his last days. Even now a tear wells up in my eye when I think of him looking at me from behind the mask, after I softly massaged his hand to give him warmth, with his folded hands.

We came to grips with our sorrow and started planning for the next steps. One of such steps was to publish the sad news in Deccan Chronicle, a local paper in Hyderabad, which got published under 'Obituaries' the very next day, with the mobile numbers of my two sisters.

Unexpectedly, next day we got few strange calls on the mobile phones  - one from an Ashram for destitute women for annadan (donation of food) and many others from various people offering a van or a purohit or flowers etc.

As we were planning for the 11th day ceremonies, a call was received from an 'agent' for placing advertisement in Deccan Chronicle. My sister met him at her office and asked him to go to our house to collect the write up. When he arrived, all of us had gone out on errands, with only my mom being at home. The fellow, who mentioned his name was Srinivas, conned my mom in preparing a bearer cheque for an amount of Rupees Thirteen thousand plus, with a receipt which does not have an address or a phone number.

Within ten minutes of my mom narrating the story over phone, we called up our friends in Corporation Bank and asked them stop payment of the cheque. Even before that this thief had already en-cashed the cheque and scooted.

The advertisement never appeared on the 11th day in Deccan Chronicle.

I am posting this story as a - be aware of - such tactics by the low life cheats in India who live off obituaries.