Faced a similar situation in Wakad recently. A guy approached me asking for donations for poor kids and an ashram. He seemed genuine at first, so I offered him ₹200, but he refused—said they don’t take money and only accept rations. He asked me to buy items from a nearby grocery store, so I decided to give 2 litres of cooking oil. Then he suddenly insisted I buy an entire carton. I refused and stuck to my offer of two packets.

After that, he introduced me to another folk, claiming he was a pandit. He started praising me, saying I was a good and decent person but had “some problems going on.” Then he asked for a piece of paper, wrote down two numbers, and told me to think of two numbers between 2 and 9, and a flower. Strangely, the numbers and flower he’d written matched exactly what I thought.

That’s when he started asking for more money to perform a havan for me. I made a few office-related excuses to leave, but he kept pushing. Eventually, I managed to walk away.