A pair of socks

         
It was the weekend - a cold winter evening in Delhi. The family had gone to check out the Trade Fair – an array of stalls selling overpriced, cheap stuff, with people doing more window-shopping than buying. After looking around, we made our way back to the car when we saw a tea-stall, with a woman and a child of say, two.

          What caught my attention was that the boy was in a sweater alright, but nothing to cover his legs in the chill. He was seemingly unperturbed, probably used to the harshness of the weather. But my little girl of eight was filled with misery at his sight, since I told her how lucky she was that she had warm clothes, while he had none.

“Would you like to gift him a pair or two of socks?” I asked.

A very keen “Yes momma.”

It was closing time but we snaked our way back into the stalls, through the crowd in the opposite direction, ran from this stall to that, and managed to hunt down a pair of socks that would fit the boy’s scrawny legs. And very satisfied, ran out.

The mother of the child had her back to us, bending over her kettle.

"Behen?” (sister)

She turned around.

Not sure how to begin, in order not to sound like I am giving alms, I said, “Well your boy had no socks on, so my daughter here bought these for him. Would you take them?”



Cold night, warm hearts

A moment of silence. Then a beam on her face.

“Heh heh, he has a bagful of socks, pants, but refuses to wear them!!” So saying, she pointed to a paper-bag full of clothes the size of which we could not make out.”

We handed her over our gift nonetheless, which the kid eagerly grabbed and tore open.

Another “heh heh” and she said “Look, he wants to put them on.”



As we made our way to the car, we wondered whether the woman lied about her son’s clothes to hide her bashfulness; whether he really needed a pair of socks or not.

But whatever the case might be, we certainly would have returned home weighed with guilt, had we not done our bit for a less fortunate creation of God. Whether the boy was warm enough or not, our hearts surely were that night.