Every morning, before I sip my first cup of tea, I go through the pages of the local daily. Most of the news are from last day's social media posts and updates. But the catch? We don't get to see the names or institutes/ companies who are summoned by the court for being loan defaulters. I don't have Schadenfreude complex but the situation of those people amuses me. How did they land up there?
Borrowing from a bank is not a joke. In Nagaland, bank loans are considered as the last resort, thanks to our strong community bonding. When friends, family or relatives are in no position to lend then we knock the doors of the banks. Paying off the credit amount and the interest is truly courageous. Many a times, we spent our lifetime paying the interest alone.
Sometimes, the defaulters' names (made clearer because of their home address or their institutes' names) comes as a shock to me. I am guilty for judging them but the passing rhetoric, 'Aren't they rich?/ Isn't the institute doing financially well?' crosses my mind.
I won't be able to waive off their loans or of any help to them financially. But it teaches me a good lesson, not to borrow which you can't pay, to carefully consider the interest rate and to know the value of your assets and the amount of your liabilities. If not then apart from being dragged to the court, the unworthy recognition of your name in the local dailies might make the readers look at you with pity like I do.
