Lucknow, Sep 21 (Inditop.com) Sachin Arora has been collecting currency notes for nearly 15 years and now many Muslim clerics have offered up to Rs.50,000 to possess just one of them. The collection is no ordinary one — all the notes bear the number 786, an important religious symbol in Islam.
A resident of Shamli town in Uttar Pradesh’s Muzaffarnagar district, Arora has a fetish for the number 786, the numerical expression of the Quranic verse Bismillah al-Rahman al-Rahim (In the name of god, the most gracious, the most merciful).
Though the 28-year-old is a Hindu, Arora says his interest in collecting currency notes ending with the serial number 786 started when he was in school, thanks to his Muslim friends.
“It all started during school days. Two of my Muslim friends told me that the notes bearing 786 are rare and if collected would bring good fortune,” Arora told Inditop over the phone from Shamli, some 350 km from here.
“When I started collecting such currency notes, I was not aware about the religious context of 786. But as I grew up, I came to know the religious connotation associated with the numerical expression,” he said.
Arora, who runs a stationery shop in Shamli, boasts of having over 500 currency notes of all denominations — all ending with the three digits 786. And he is not ready to part with them at any cost.
“They are my most prized possessions. I just don’t let anybody, even my family members, to take the currency notes in their hands,” said Arora.
Muslim clerics and people belonging to affluent families have made repeated efforts to own some of the notes from Arora’s collection.
“You won’t believe it…They offer me Rs.25,000 to Rs.50,000 for one or two currency notes. Not only from Muzaffarnagar, I get phone calls from different parts of Uttar Pradesh with people offering me huge amounts to get a few notes from my collection,” said Arora.
“I have collected such notes in 15 years. It’s not a short period. I share a kind of bonding with the notes. So you tell me how can I give them…They are priceless to me. Under no condition can I give the notes to anybody,” he added.
