DAS KA ICE-CREAM

 



“Kindness is a language which the deaf can hear

and the blind can see.”

Mark Twain

 

I have come across two kinds of balloon sellers. The first kind are men with little babies in their  hands. This kind would keep pestering you to buy a balloon or two from them crying, “Saab, bachha ne khana nahin kaya.” Invariably, we would find this kind when our family is just walking out of a restaurant after dinner…

It's a disturbing sight… Your family has had a sumptuous dinner, and here is the balloon seller weeping, that his little one is going to sleep hungry at night.

“He is a habitual beggar; ignore him,” one side of me prompts me. But, then, I pull out a note of twenty or fifty, give him and walk away for my own guilt-free heart.

The second kind are mostly little kids – around the age of 10 to 12 or something like that. I have met them selling balloons, key chains, tissue papers etc., and, yes, mostly while coming out of a mall, an ice-cream parlor or a restaurant. These kids, too, keep pestering, “Saab, lelo, saab lelo.”  What is inspiring about this kind is: They will never take your money, unless you buy their simple products. This means, no begging mindset… No self-pity… Immense dignity of labour. And, I have happily paid the amount and come home with their merchandise, with a smile on my face and pride in my heart. These kids remind me of the little kid (in Amitabh’s cult-film ‘Deewaar’), who refused to pick the coin thrown before him after polishing the shoes of the mafia king… “Main pheke hue paise nahin uthata.”



Remember?

Well, these two approaches to Life – and our work – are always available to every one of us…

Charity is a shy act. Simple charity doesn’t even like itself to be called ‘charity’…  

Yesterday, I was at a local kirana store buying some namkeen. I overheard a little girl asking the store owner, “Uncle, ek panch ka  ice-cream do.”

“Panch ka nahin aata hai; das ka hai,”  the store owner told her casually.

I turned towards the little girl, who appeared to be from a nearby slum. Her face had fallen hearing what the store owner had just said, and she had turned to go back…

Instinctively, I called the little girl back, slid down the door of the big freezer where there were several varieties of ice-creams, bars and kulfies… “I picked a nice, big Cornetto and handed over it to the little girl… She felt too shy and said, “Nahin Sir.” I insisted…She refused to take the one I was trying to give her. Finally, she picked from the freezer the one she wanted – Das ka ice-cream… It was a simple locally-made kulfi…

The face was now glowing like the brightest of all the Diwali stars!





I do not know what will this girl become one day… And, I do not know if what I did in the kirana store was charity or pity…

I am sure, it was neither…

 

GERALD D’CUNHA                        

 

Pic’s: Pixabay

 

Video: 1. Movie Clips  2. Carroll Roberson

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