A vegetable vendor forced me to come out of my comfortable cooler room by knocking at the main door at intervals and asked to call out my mother. It was a really hot summer day even at 4 pm. As soon as my mother came out, the vendor, middle-aged on the lower side, handed her a Rs. 500 note while informing her that the note was lying just a few yards in front of her house and theorized that maybe some walkerby had dropped it without knowledge.
Since I was standing in the shade of the pomegranate tree in our home and listening to the whole matter, I asked him to keep it with himself as we certainly can't find the rightful heir to the fallen money. Who dropped it, when, whether he/she will come to know of it, will anyone return finding it, or would he be gone too far away to even be able to do anything about it rather than curse himself / herself... these were the questions quickly discussed while two more of the neighborhood aunties too joined in the discussion. All of them were in favour of the vendor keeping the money with him because he was very poor.
But he was too stubborn to listen to anyone in this regard. In those minutes of life, I encountered what principles meant to someone in practicality. The vendor won at last due to his steely righteousness as he convinced us to keep the money with my mother and wait till evening the next day if we encounter anyone looking for the found sum of money, otherwise he will come for his regular round in a few days and then he will keep the money, everyone decided.
After only an hour later when we children were gathering in the ground nearby to play cricket, we found a person who was walking in random steps with his head down searching for something. Without any delay I went to him and confirmed his fear and returned the note to him kept in my home. The vendor had a sense of fulfillment reflected in his smile when he got to know about it later. Since then he became a regular vegetable vendor in our neighborhood but vanished a few years after with no reappearance but not without being a role model to us children of the colony.
P.S. -- I am writing about #MyRoleModel as a part of the activity by Gillette India in association with BlogAdda.com.
Since I was standing in the shade of the pomegranate tree in our home and listening to the whole matter, I asked him to keep it with himself as we certainly can't find the rightful heir to the fallen money. Who dropped it, when, whether he/she will come to know of it, will anyone return finding it, or would he be gone too far away to even be able to do anything about it rather than curse himself / herself... these were the questions quickly discussed while two more of the neighborhood aunties too joined in the discussion. All of them were in favour of the vendor keeping the money with him because he was very poor.
But he was too stubborn to listen to anyone in this regard. In those minutes of life, I encountered what principles meant to someone in practicality. The vendor won at last due to his steely righteousness as he convinced us to keep the money with my mother and wait till evening the next day if we encounter anyone looking for the found sum of money, otherwise he will come for his regular round in a few days and then he will keep the money, everyone decided.
After only an hour later when we children were gathering in the ground nearby to play cricket, we found a person who was walking in random steps with his head down searching for something. Without any delay I went to him and confirmed his fear and returned the note to him kept in my home. The vendor had a sense of fulfillment reflected in his smile when he got to know about it later. Since then he became a regular vegetable vendor in our neighborhood but vanished a few years after with no reappearance but not without being a role model to us children of the colony.
P.S. -- I am writing about #MyRoleModel as a part of the activity by Gillette India in association with BlogAdda.com.
