During the last two weeks of June one year, my little restaurant was closed for renovation. When the staff returned on the first of July, everyone was in a jolly mood. I made them happier by giving them the whole month’s salary.
My two cleaning ladies, Komala and Kanagi, were quiet and their grave, troubled faces disturbed me. I hoped that they were not going to quit and leave me without help. At the end of the day, when they came and stood before me, my heart sank. Komala grabbed my hand and pressed something into it. It was half-a-month’s salary from both of them. “We have not worked for two weeks, so how can we take this money,” she said.
I was stunned to hear this and deeply touched. I explained to them that as an employer I wanted to be fair and pay them the whole month’s salary. I put the money back into their hands. They were even more distressed. “We know that you had no customers during this time, and you have spent so much on the renovation; so you need the money more than we do,” Kanagi said and pushed the money back into my hands.
Both women are mothers of small children. It is their desperate desire to give their children a better life than they have had that made them look for work so far away. I pushed the money back into their hands again and told them to keep it. “Amma, during the holidays, we went to work in the fields and were paid for it. So taking this money from you is not right.” The money came back into my hands. For the final time, I gave it back to them, and they took it reluctantly.
The sincerity with which they kept pushing the money back into my hands made me tear up. The extra money would have meant so much to them, and yet, they were gracious and wanted to be fair to me. The next day, a girl who was one of my regular customers sulkily complained that her father, a well-to-do businessman, had bought gifts for his widowed sister and her children. “Did he not buy you anything,” I asked.
“Yes, but why should he have to buy for them as well?” I pointed out Komala and Kanagi as they were clearing tables nearby, and told her the story of their graciousness. The whining stopped. I hoped that she would realise that her father’s benevolence to his sister’s family was an affirmation of compassion and the deep love of a brother and uncle.
There is the college girl and Komala and Kanagi in all of us. How do we choose whom to be?
ushajesudasan@gmail.com
