One day in the late 1960s, I parked my bicycle outside a restaurant called ‘Vishranthi Grih’ located on the main road of Sitabuldi, Nagpur, to buy some gajras from the toothless old woman sitting there. As she started packing them, a waiter came out from inside the restaurant and handed her two hot idlis and a cup of sambar in a leaf bowl. The old woman thanked her and said softly, I have not even done my ‘Bohani’ yet. The waiter replied, Sir has said that you do not need to pay. Then he added that he noticed that you had not eaten anything yet and that your breakfast time had already passed. The old woman looked towards the cash counter, where the restaurant owner Mani Iyer was sitting wearing his familiar white dhoti and half-sleeved shirt. The old woman looked at them and bowed her head in gratitude; Iyer just smiled and waved and got busy taking money from customers. When the old lady handed me the gajras, she whispered softly, they are the form of God. I smiled and went away. When I later told this to my mother, she said, when you can read hunger on someone’s face, then you should give them food. Mani Iyer was adept at this; What they saw were the countless hungry faces that passed through their doors every day. Mother also followed the above words in her life. Every summer—before the monsoon—laborers would come to paint the walls of our house white and replace the traditional, handmade clay tiles on the roof. At lunch time I would see him sitting in a corner, where he would take out dry rotis wrapped in newspaper and eat them with only onions and green chillies. I often saw tears in my mother’s eyes while watching them. She had already prepared some gravy items for the labourers. One could see the glow on the faces of those laborers while eating this home-cooked food. Decades later, there was silence on the streets on the second day of the Covid lockdown. Only the sounds of chirping birds were heard. Sometimes a government vehicle would also pass by. The world seemed very deserted from my flat on the eleventh floor. Then one day a neighbor called on the intercom and asked a question: How will the food be arranged for your security guards? In our rush to protect our families, many of us didn’t even think about this. Immediately our entire building united. We created a WhatsApp roster and prepared a schedule of who would serve tea to the guards and who would arrange refreshments for them. It was a small but organized effort of ‘Covid-kindness’ that lasted for a few weeks and helped us survive in the long run. This Saturday, when I read about the rising cost of cooking, all these things came to my mind. Small restaurant operators and street vendors have come under pressure due to the third consecutive increase in the prices of cooking gas. With global costs rising due to the ongoing conflict in West Asia, the price of a 19 kg commercial LPG cylinder has increased by nearly Rs 1,000 to over Rs 3,000. Coupled with volatile costs of edible oils and labour, eateries – especially street vendors – are being forced to raise prices by 20-30% or reduce the quantities of their products. This made me think that when a cup of tea already contains only two sips in the smallest cup, how much more can a street vendor squeeze into it? Now—more than ever—we need to look at those faces again, just as my mother and Mani Iyer did—and remember the kindness that fills the voids when the economy can’t. The bottom line is that even a small act of kindness can profoundly change the life of not only the recipient, but oftentimes the giver as well. This time, if possible, try it.
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N. Raghuraman’s column: There is a need to rekindle the spirit of ‘Covid-kindness’
