I am a 70 years old fellow who has achieved several credentials in terms of my personal, academic, and professional careers. Currently, I am enjoying my retirement with my savings and other assets. I engage in several social activities as a volunteer for my pleasure. That is my background.
This is a true story that happened during the period of Covid-19. The covid-19 pandemic affected all lives all over the world, most affected are poor families because of lost income, lost family members, lack of alternative income sources, etc. I am telling you a true story as it happened. You don't have to think twice, nothing imaginary or fabricated.
During the Covid-19 period and afterward, I have been helping a few poor families to overcome their financial difficulties and meet their basic needs. As an outsider, I help them secure regular income for them primarily to buy daily needs such as grocery purchases.
I met this family, which is the subject to my story when I was traveling for pleasure, such as sightseeing and wildlife tours, etc. They live in a very rural area more than 200 km from the capital. The family consists of 5 members of mom (a poor widow of about 40 years old), three children, and widow's mother.
Let's call the widow 'Nanditha'. Nanditha's husband passed away due to ill health, about one year ago from this story. The children are aged, older daughter aged 17 years and unemployed, son, aged 12 years, and younger daughter 14 years. Her grandma is about 80 years of age.
Nanditha had no adequate education to find reasonable full-time employment. Nanditha's family income after her husband died was selling some veggies collected from the village. This was possible because their house was located on a highway connecting two main cities. As you may guess, this income source is very irregular, so the family had been undergoing many financial hardships. These hardships were so acute especially during the Covid-19 pandemic due to lockdowns that greatly affected people's movements.
I met this family before the pandemic and met occasionally when I travel in that region from time to time. I also financially helped them, but that was not a regular.
As the pandemic began, it was my personal decision to help them to relieve themselves to some extent from their financial hardships. I got Nanditha's bank account number and set up a weekly automatic payment of a reasonable amount just to cover their grocery purchases.
This continued for more than one year until the travel restrictions were removed after a gradual recovery from the pandemic. I did not expect anything in return from Nanditha except my personal satisfaction of helping a poor family at a time when they were not able to eat their regular meals due to poverty.
During this period, my wife was engaged in supporting raising our grandkids belonging to one of our sons living overseas. You can imagine how difficult my day-to-day life is – loneliness, cooking meals, and lack of companionship. Now the real story begins.
Since I had been helping this widow for quite some time, and they were having kids of school-going age, I decided to give them a good time that included travel to the metropolitan capital city where I live. Also, I had another plan which you will understand as the story unfolds.
I requested Nanditha to visit the city I live in for three days (two nights out). The two kids were fully excited to hear that news since it was a good time for them to enjoy their hectic boring life. I specially requested Nanditha to ask her elder daughter to remain in the house to look after her aging grandmother. Traveling by grandma to a long distance was impossible as her health condition does not permit it.
The dates were fixed, I booked two twin rooms (rooms with two beds) in a hotel in the capital. The hotel was 4-star with a sea view. I also kept my car ready to take them to see some important sites in the capital.
Two rooms were required since we could not stay in one room due to my relationship with them. I am neither a family member nor have an appropriate relationship with Nanditha to spend a night in one room with her and her kids.
I arranged for Nanditha and the two kids to travel by public transport to the capital. Also, I sent the required bus fare and some pocket money required for the travel. They arrived in the evening at the main bus stand where I was waiting for them. The hotel was in the vicinity of the bus stand and I left my car in the hotel car park.
Once they arrived, I accompanied them to the hotel. We all checked in to the hotel. I checked into one room with the boy. I let Nanditha check into another room with her daughter. Since Nanditha was not familiar with hotel stays, I kept the keys to both rooms with me.
At about 7 pm, we went to have dinner in a good nearby restaurant. I wanted to offer them a good meal and a nice experience of having dinner in a good upper-class restaurant. I had a beer while eating. Once we finished having dinner, we went for a walk on the beach and returned to our hotel rooms.
It was about 9:00 pm when we checked back into the rooms. By this time, three of them were tired of traveling about 200 km in public transport and required a good sleep. We all four were having a friendly chat about how the day went by, in the room
Nanditha and her daughter were supposed to spend the night. At about 10:00 pm, everybody except me seemed like it was time for a good sleep. Me and the boy came back to our room leaving Nanditha and her daughter in their room. I made the boy stay with me for a comfortable sleep in the other bed in my room. Soon, he fell asleep.
Now the execution of my master plan begins. I was waiting for the best time to begin the execution of my plan.