All Chettas and Chechis of Mangoville, today I, Fruity Farookh of Champakulam Village, Alleppey District is swearing upon jackfruit and additionally swearing upon tapioca that I will not do business with Superpower Swamy. He is simply fooling people by the halo around his head, which I am sure is fake too. Yesterday he was trying to sell me some complicated scheme, which he claimed will change my life forever. Mishra ji told me that it is a Ponzi scheme and not to fall for it. I don’t know what is the meaning of Ponzi, but the word sounds very fishy so I believed Mishra ji. Then I met Rickshaw Rowdy who said Swamy was trying to sell him the same scheme. That Swamy has no shame. Imagine trying to con poor people like Rowdy and myself. But I decided to learn more about this Ponzi scheme.
In Swamy’s Ponzi scheme I am supposed to buy something, anything from this company called Scamnet. Then I will become part of their so called Family. Imagine me, Fruity Farookh the grocer who sells everything from idiyappam mix to deodorant, he wants me to buy for my own households need from Scamnet. What logic sir. If my wife in Champakulam comes to know that I have bought coconut oil from a coconut that did not fall from the tree in our own house, she will not talk to me for six months. And my father in law will tell all his friends in the coffee shop that his son in law is stupid for buying coconut oil for Rs 500 that can be extracted from his own free coconuts.
So after I buy coconut oil, coconut face cream, coconut body lotion, I am supposed to tell all my friends and relatives also to buy. As if one stupid Fruity Farookh is not enough in Alleppey, now whole Alleppey needs to become stupid. I would rather jump into a shallow backwater and be run over by a houseboat with tourists clicking selfies. Swamy tells me that every time a friend of mine buys something from Scamnet, I will get commission. Like this if I keep getting people to buy useless things from Scamnet, I will keep getting commission and become rich. Then I will not need to run my grocery shop and I can sit in a houseboat and drink toddy and relax.
Well, I will be honest. It didn’t sound fishy. I mean, this is very simple. So many people earn their livelihood from sales commission, what is the big deal? Then Swamy explained. When my friends sell to their friends, again I make commission. He asked me to imagine a long chain and how much money I could make like this. I thought for a moment and I imagined lot of money. But then I thought that Swamy will also get money from what I buy because he brought me into this scheme. And Swamy’s boss will also get it. Who knows how many bosses Swamy has on top of him. No wonder they are selling coconut oil for 500 Rupees. They need to pay commission to everyone in the chain. Tell me sir, I am selling coconut oil for Rs 120 in my humble shop. In that I am earning margin of Rs 12. If 75 people have to eat commission from that Rs 12, how will anyone survive?
I went home and applied my Malayali grocer brains to it. It became very clear that after a point, we will run out of people to sell to. Imagine if everyone is trying to sell to everyone, who will buy? Everyone in the world cannot be a shopkeeper no? Is everyone in Baiganpally a Fruity Farookh? In fact my guess is that we have already run out of people to sell to and only the few people at the top are making any money. We will just be holding lemons, while they will be eating watermelons. That is why they have roped in people like Superpower Swamy to make fools out of simple people like me and Rowdy. Instead of doing something good for society, Swamy is busy making ‘motivational’ videos for Scamnet. He is claiming in those videos that he was a poor man from Kalahandi district before he joined Scamnet and now he is a monk with a Ferrari. What a fraud. If he is a monk, then Old Monk is a children’s drink. Ferrari my foot. He haggles for fare with Rickshaw Rowdy for going to the toddy bar.
If I could make fancy Youtube videos, I would expose Swamy and his lies. That crook can’t sell grass to a cow, how can he claim to be a super salesman with a huge network? But that is for another day. Today I only want to warn my fellow citizens of Mangoville that do not get trapped by Swamy’s smooth videos. He is getting money from Scamnet. Lots of monies. If you keep on trying to sell useless things to your friends and family and expect them to do the same thing, they will stop being your friends and family. Swamy is a crook who usurped the Ashram from Bhayankar Baba. He has no family and no scruples. Don’t be like Swamy.