Indian Farmer Buries Cash Underground... Only to Feed It to Termites

500-Rupee Notes Eaten by Termites
Local Bank Refuses to Exchange Damaged Cash

A farmer in India faced an unbelievable situation when the cash he had secretly buried underground, without telling his family, was eaten by termites.

According to Indian local media 'The Times of India,' Mangi-ral Megwal, a farmer living in a village in Rajasthan, India, sold his land a year ago and received 500,000 rupees (approximately 800,000 won).

He planned to use the cash to build a room on his farm. However, worried that his family might spend the money without his knowledge, he kept the matter to himself. Megwal put the cash in a black plastic bag and, under the cover of night, went outside, dug a hole in the ground, and buried the package of money.

Farmer Mangirral Megwal. Photo by NDTV, India capture

However, as time passed, he forgot where he had buried the money. Megwal searched his field, which was about 2.5 hectares—roughly the size of 3 to 4 football fields—for several days, but ultimately could not find the cash.

Afterwards, he confessed to his wife and son about burying the envelope of cash, and enlisted their help to search the field together. Even so, they could not locate the money.

About a year later, it rained, and while Megwal was preparing the field for farming, the plastic bag buried in the soil got caught on his tractor and surfaced. His wife and son, who were fixing the fence, discovered the plastic bag by chance.

However, the envelope was badly damaged, and the 500-rupee notes inside had been chewed into pieces by termites. The Megwal family hurried to collect the scraps of money and took them to a State Bank of India (SBI) branch, but the bank told them the bills were too badly damaged to be exchanged or accepted.

The bank recommended that they visit the head office of SBI, but Megwal, who is illiterate and financially strained, was reportedly unable to travel across the vast land of India.

The media reported that Megwal deeply regretted his mistake, and that his wife and son criticized him, blaming his decision to hide the money in the field for causing the predicament.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.