Only deeds matter

A FRIEND of mine runs a successful fruit juice business. Her husband is in the medical fraternity like mine and her three daughters are from the same school as mine. Her sister-in-law was my favourite teacher at school. Added to all this, I even shared the same compartment of the hill train to Coonoor one summer. All these gave us ample opportunity to know each other, but it was her honesty and warmth that drew me to her and we became good friends.

After attending to her daily chores, she would personally supervise her business, stressing on quality and maintaining the nominal cost. Little wonder then that she has achieved immense success.

One morning she came panting. She used a rented place near my house as her godown. Being centrally located, it was easy for her to operate from this place. But the owners wanted her to vacate and she came to me asking if there was any hall or room available in the neighbourhood. Having lived in the same locality for more than five decades, I searched high and low in vain. Though I couldn't help her, she finally managed to get a place. She thanked me with hands laden with juice bottles. But the juicy story doesn't stop there.

Since then, every summer, the peak season for her business, before the distribution of the juice bottles begin, she will send across two bottles to me as her annual tribute. But I didn't get you a room, I once asked. You were a great support when I was in deep trouble - a friend in need is a friend indeed, she quipped. "Love's labour lost" I would say and having the final say, she would proclaim - "triumph of labour!" Isn't this grateful gesture a beautiful deed?

Just the other day, my husbandand and I had an unpleasant experience at the passport office to get our documents in the shortest possible time to travel overseas. Despite having pulled strings, we were driven from pillar-to-post and made to hang around literally in the corridor for a whole day. A lady in the computer section did some calculations to reject our "tatkaal" application. I abused the spoilsport (much to my regret later). She somehow got the officer's seal to prove that we were beyond the 'tatkaal' period. As a result, we had to pay a three figure fee instead of a four figure one. Realisation then dawned on me that the lady did not want us to pay more.

Another incident is about my son when he was in school. A timid and studious boy, he absent-mindedly left his book behind at home. Since his teacher was akin to one of Macbeth's famed trio he sobbed his heart out. But his happy-go-lucky friend gave him his book and said, "you keep it, I can manage". Today, my son is going to be a P.G. in Management).

Here's dedicating this article to such beautiful people. As Sappho said "What is beautiful is good and who is good will soon be beautiful".

THARA MOHAN RAO

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