This happened in 1999 when I was nine. It was my first school outing, a day picnic from Kozhikode to Wayanad and back. In the evening, we were about to board the bus back home when we noticed an ice-cream stall and someone asked the teacher, a nun, “Sister, can we go and buy ice cream?” She hesitated and said, “Okay, we’re almost done, you can buy ice cream, make it quick.” The note given to parents had strictly said that no outside purchases were allowed. So I didn’t have a single penny in my pocket, and I thought no one else did either.
But then I saw everybody pulling out money from their pockets and moving to the ice cream stall. I did not know how to handle the situation, I felt sad and shy and thought God! I have no money with me and I love ice cream! I stayed back, sitting on a bench under a tree, watching my friends rush to the stall. The nun came to me and asked, “Amarnath, why don’t you buy yourself ice cream, it’s okay.” I smiled but couldn’t bring myself to tell her that I had no money to buy it. It probably never even crossed her mind that I didn’t.
Then I noticed one of my classmates looking at me from the stall, he came to me and asked,”Shall I buy ice cream for you?” I said, “No, it’s okay.” He asked me why, I lied and said I had tonsillitis so I couldn’t have ice cream. He said nothing would happen if I had ice cream just for one day. Then he took a spoon of ice cream and told me to eat just a little. “Nothing will happen, just have it for me,” he said, and I had a spoon of ice cream from his cup. Then he smiled at me and walked away.
Looking back, I had never experienced such empathy from someone else who was my own age until that day. I gratefully remember that friend of mine, the 9-year-old boy! It was the cherry on top of the picnic.
#day5ofGratitude #originalcontent #bilingual #365daysofGratitude #synchronicity #paradigmshift #gratitude #awakening #meditation #awareness #forgiveness #apologetic #compassion #brotherhood