I was sitting at the railway car park in Arakkonam, eating my breakfast, as I had arrived early for a workshop. My car faced a thick growth of bushes and small trees, shading me from the hot, early-morning sun. I noticed a tiny girl dart into the bushes with a little aluminium tiffin box. She hung the box on a low branch and then heaved a long, dry coconut leaf over to hide it. She spent just a few moments smoothing the leaf and making it look as natural as possible. Finally she stopped, looked around, and when sure no one else had seen what she had done, ran away. I held my breath shocked at what I had just seen — a little girl hiding her food hoping that no one would steal it. I wondered what she had in her tiffin box.
Seasoned thieves
Then the unimaginable happened. Three teenage boys who obviously knew about this hiding place or had seen her, came along, and with long stout sticks poked around all the bushes. There was the sound of gentle metal. The boys found the box and within minutes ate the food laughing all the time. Then they put the box back in its place and covered it up.
I couldn’t believe what I had just seen. It all happened so fast. I couldn’t think what the poor girl would do when she returned, hungry and eagerly opening her box only to find it empty. My driver who had seen all this was most upset. Fortunately, his mind worked faster than mine. He got out of the car, went to the railway canteen and came back with three sets of idlis with sambar and chutney, two bars of chocolates, some biscuits and a bottle of soft drink. He put the food inside the tiffin box and tied the bag of goodies to it. Then he sat and watched over it while I went to my workshop.
“Why did these boys behave like this,” I wondered. Was it just because she was a little girl? It wasn’t hunger that drove them to eat her food, but just cruel wicked pleasure.
I thought about the problem of evil around us. How helpless we feel when we are silent witnesses to many of the bad things that happen around us every day.
But we can’t end this story here. Today, evil does not get to win. The boys did something terrible, but today goodness had the last say. That little girl will not cry or go hungry or be humiliated as perhaps the boys intended. Because a man with a good heart saw the evil that was being done and stepped in to intervene.
This is how we fight the evil we see around us every day. By not looking the other way, but by fighting it with little acts of goodness and kindness.
ushajesudasan@gmail.com
