Fake god-man stole my 250 rupees and offered to cut my throat and dump me in a field.

I had a brainfart moment and the perfect con man was in the right place and the right time to take advantage of it.

It was an early December morning. I woke up at 3AM to catch a flight from Kolkata to Delhi, so that I could be in my Gurgaon office by 10AM.

At 9 AM, I found myself stuck in traffic on the Delhi-GGN highway, sleep deprived and super uncomfortable as I had overestimated how cold it'll be and wore a wool sweater.

Then comes this guy, dressed in saffron, carrying a bucket, some pooja flowers and some beads.

I don't know why I felt that I might hurt people's religious sentiments, so I lower my window when this guy knocks on it. He does some ong-bhring-bhrum on my face with the flowers and asks for some money. I open my wallet, thanks to UPI, I just have a 50 rupees note and a 200 rupees note. At that point I felt that this has come too far to refuse to pay.

So I give him the Rs 50 note. He then does some more hocus pocus and asks to take out more money. He "doesn't want it" but just wants to bless my notes. I took out the only note I had left.

Now some of my braincells were apparently still working as I held the note up but far away from him and the window. What he did next was actually pretty impressive (in hindsight).

In a slight of hand he stuffed some flowers in my free hand and reached in to cleanly snap the 200 note. And I let it happen. My brain somehow processed it as a "fair transaction". For the next few seconds we just looked at each other.

He could have gone away, but didn't. I had already accepted defeat, more because of my own stupidity than anything else. But I tried my best to sound angry and asked for the money back.

He nonchalantly crumbled up the notes, put them in his mouth rolled them around, took them out, spit on them and held out the spit drenched ball. I told him to return the money one more time (guess I still had some pride left).

Then came the threat. I didn't fully understand him but he did say "gala kaat ke laash phek dunga". I wasn't scared, given that I was in an uber, stuck in traffic in the middle of a highway, but it was at that point when I realized that I don't have what it takes to deal with this kind of unhingedness.

So I threw the flower he had stuffed in my hand on his face, we had one last visual exchange and then he just turned and left, like a deal well done.

What I don't understand is why didn't he just leave after snatching the money from me?

Also Gurgaon traffic stands long enough for something like this to go down in the middle of it.

I didn't consider myself stupid, but I've started having a creeping suspicion ever since that incident.