Lamp better than a lottery ticket? A doc should have known better than to be taken in by an in-genie-us deception

No one can be trusted these days; even supposedly ill people judging by the recent incident of a doctor in UP being duped into forking out Rs 31 lakh as a down payment for a magic lamp with a genie. The three grifters—including a woman—who pulled it off have to be commended for their gumption to target a doctor given that a “scientific temper” is touted as a safeguard against superstition and should therefore kick in when a con is in progress. And seeing a genie emanate from a lamp thanks to the ministrations of a godman should have rung alarm bells in a normal medical mind—especially since holograms are well known already at political and social events around India.

Perhaps the good doctor never forgot the tale he had heard as a boy about the genie getting Aladdin a palace and a princess as a bride and a kingdom, and buying the lamp seemed a better bet than a lottery ticket. Or maybe he recently caught a rerun of the hit American TV sitcom from the 1960s, 'I Dream of Jeannie', and imagined it may be useful to have a ditzy blonde genie at his beck and call for the nominal price of Rs 2.6 crore. It was wise of the doctor to come clean to the police about being gypped and get the confidence tricksters arrested. But explaining how he had that much money to spare to acquire a genie will need considerable tall tale telling skills too.