A small gesture

It was the early years of the Indian Republic when I was in class five in a small inconspicuous vernacular school. Republic day was a grand festival, we had no classes but had a flag hoisting ceremony and were let off early. The highlight of the day was the distribution of sweets.

The headmaster Adhikesavulu sir gave a long lecture on the importance of Republic day, which we didn’t understand, we were focused on the bag he had on his side. We knew it was full of 'Parry's' chocolates. When the time came for distribution of sweets and our dispersal, the headmaster said there was a small change in the routine and he was going to give away sweets first to the boys who were standing outside and knew about the goodies. There was a general grumble of discontent. Believe me, good deeds really didn’t reach us that much those days.

Then our favourite teacher Abichael Williams went to the podium and whispered into the headmaster’s ears. He immediately brightened and announced, ‘boys, form a line and take one sweet each, and as you go out, give that to the boys outside. Then come back again and I will give you again one each which is for yourself’. This was better since we would be engaged otherwise and there was a general buzz of approval. The school peon ran away to the gate to discipline those boys outside.

Well, we did as we're told, gave away the sweets to those eager boys, and collected our own sweets, dispersed and were going home. The roadside crowd also dispersed in the meantime. However, there was a small assembly of very disappointed, poor, young boys and girls who were pushed away by grownups.

As I was going out with a few chums, there was this little boy, maybe in the first standard, where Abichael Williams was the class teacher and there was quite a flock around her. While we ignored the small assembly outside the gate, this little boy pulled out his own well preserved sweet from his pocket and gave it to a little girl who was even younger than him. We were all stunned. All the other small kids around the teacher did the same.

To give, when you know you will have nothing, is a lesson that has no equivalence even with 40 years of my association with NGOs.