Perceptions from the Wallet

Last night, on my way back from work, I took an auto rickshaw. Reaching home, I paid the driver Rs 30 in three notes of 10 each. At the very moment the money changed hands, I realised that I had given him a 50 instead of a 10. I told him as much, in a sort of apologetic manner. His hand was already putting the money inside his shirt pocket. On hearing me, he took the money out, along with the rest of the money in there too. Showing me all of it, which had one 50 note, he insisted that I hadn't given him that one note, that he got it an hour ago from someone else.

I was a bit flummoxed, so I checked my wallet again and was sure that I had indeed given him that note. So conversation ensued, soon in to which he said I had actually paid him only Rs 20, and that I owed him another tenner. Of course, I maintained that he owed me Rs 40 in change, and I was by now a bit incensed at the man's insolence. I mean, I could have considered the fact that it was a mistake wholly on my part. I mean, if I gave him one note instead of another, it is also conceivable that I didn't give him the said note at all. But then, we hardly live in a time where someone selling you a product or service will not count the cash received. And that is precisely what this man was claiming to have done, that he did not count the money I gave him till such time as I pointed it out. Then, when he did count it, must he have taken out all the contents of his pocket instead of simply counting what he was holding in hand, i.e., exactly what I gave him?

Sure enough, it all got a bit ugly and we ended up at a nearby police kiosk (at his insistence, I still don't know why exactly). He launched in to a complaining explanation about how I was not just swindling him for Rs 10, but also about how I was swearing at him, involving his mother, sister and many other female family members in unspeakable acts of profanity. After listening to it all with a weary sympathetic ear, the cop turned to me. I began my defense by saying that I had issued all of one expletive, not so much directed at him but at the fucked up situation in general. And then, I said my part of the story, feeling a little foolish the entire time, simply because I knew fully well that there was naught the cop could do, and that I was there only because it had become a matter of principle from being a matter of money. I was being accused of shortchanging an auto-driver and it didn't sit well with me. Especially when the very same auto-driver had started by asking for Rs 60 for the same journey earlier.

Anyway, the rest of the detail doesn't matter. After the auto-driver left, the cop told me that "those guys are always creating trouble, we are sick of the number of complaints we get". I was busy being incredulous and angry at being accused of trying to keep Rs 10 of someone else's hard-earned money. I was angry not just because I consider myself a mostly honest man (I will be the first to agree about my lapses on this front in certain situations), but also because it was an auto-driver accusing me. Why would my wallet, the proverbial size of which is bigger than his, want to eat in to his wallet? How dare he question my integrity about such money matters when it is he who indulges in unethical behaviour many times a day?

That is when another question cropped up in my mind and I am still working on finding an exact answer. In the event of a financial conflict between individuals, exactly how much of my perception of others' integrity will be defined by the relative sizes of their wallets?