The Four Men

 'Another day gone, we couldn't make a move,' Bipin said regretfully. We four men-Jatin, Lalit, Bipin, and myself, Raghav were patiently observing the movements in the house across the road. That house was occupied by a single man, a senior citizen, and there was no other occupant. The domestic help came twice a day, once in the morning and made a second visit in the evening. She left the house after 10 pm when the old man had his dinner and retired for the night.

We were without work for the past three months and hardly had any money to subsist on. Our automobile company, where we worked, had fired us. There was a mass sacking of employees. Most of the manual work would be done by robots now, so much of the human workforce had become redundant. Customer preferences and government incentives for producing electric vehicles had resulted in the promoters of the automobile company making the drastic decision for which we had become unwanted and hence without work. So, the owners just kicked us out, some two hundred of us. From then onwards, we are trying our best to fend for ourselves.

But success was eluding us. Not succeeding in finding work and income, we decided to tread on an uncharted path, sacrificing all ethics. Unable to bear poverty, we decided to banish honesty from our lives. So we four of us, boys now men, decided to tread the evil path, whatever the consequence.

Every day for the past three months now, we used to come and sit near the tea stall opposite our factory gate, hoping to get a callback. But with no luck.

Then we decided to visit the 'Lakeside' area where the affluent lived. There were many senior citizens living in the area; some were just single as their spouses had passed away. Their children had left them for greener pastures elsewhere. They were all very affluent but had no one to take care of them. For most of the day, they were alone when their domestic help departed. So they were very vulnerable.

This was an easy target, and we decided to exploit it and benefit from it. After much research, we targeted this old gentleman.