A meeting that struck a chord!

A couple of months ago, I happened to go out for lunch with a few colleagues despite having carried lunch from home. I did not want to waste it, so I kept it with me. Just then, I spotted this, shriveled lady sitting on the footpath to the opposite side of the road. I walked up to her and asked her if she wanted some food that I could give her. She was delighted! I cannot even go onto explain just how happy she was. She handed me a little bag and I emptied my lunch into the bag. When I was giving her a 50 rupee note, she refused to take it saying that I had given her food, so she didn’t want the money. On persuasion, she took it. She thanked me with tears in her eyes, she kissed my hand and I went away, almost teary too. It’s amazing how happy you can make someone feel with just a small thing like giving them your lunch. If it could get her teared up, it must've meant a lot to her. It made her smile, that's what matters.

Today I happened to go that way and noticed her sitting right at the same place, prayerful. She saw me and recognized me at once. I knelt down to talk to her. She asked me how I was and all that. She held my hand and kissed it. I cannot comprehend what exactly I had done to earn that love from her. She ran her hand down my face and said to me, ‘Please come and see me once in a while. I do not have girls in my family, you are like my grandchild. I had that food for 3 days that you have given me last time around. God Bless you. Always be happy.’ I hugged her and left. I did not even know what to say back, but I told her I would come and see her again. It was so overwhelming! I felt bizarre! I really do not know if I even deserve that kind of love for something so little that I did. But I thought that it probably meant so much to her. Like I said in one of my earlier blogs, Human emotions astonish me. They go beyond the facets of familiarity, of relationships and distance. Sometimes, the little things you do can make people happy and maybe that kind of a reality check is all that I need; to make someone happy, to make someone around me smile, to be the source of someone’s happiness, to know that making someone happy costs nothing, it is the heart that really matters in the end.