Moral Short Story – Madhoo’s lessons in kindness
Photo credit: bosela from morguefile.com
The class greets Saritha Miss, the charming English teacher of VI C. She tells her students to take down their homework. They all have to write an essay on ‘kindness’ and submit the same to the class monitor in a week. The exciting part is that the selected best essays will be published in the school magazine.
Madhoo and her friends are very thrilled. Madhoo exclaims, “It’s simply great to get your essay published in the school magazine.” Sohini, Madhoo’s best friend nods her head in approval.
The class breaks for lunch. Madhoo, still seated on her chair, is thinking about the essay topic. Sohini, on the other hand, is waiting for Madhoo to join her for lunch. They always eat their lunch together under the giant mango tree behind the school auditorium. Sohini reminds Madhoo that they are getting late for lunch. Madhoo gets irritated and tells her, “I am in the middle of something. You go ahead. I will join you later.” Sohini silently walks out of the room.
The last bell for the day rings. Sohini leaves the class without saying a word to Madhoo. Madhoo is slightly puzzled by Sohini’s indifference but she ignores it. She runs to the school bus, breaks the queue, accidentally steps on the foot of her junior and unapologetic ally pushes her way inside the bus. She remains more or less inattentive to things happening around her.
“Madhoo, your stop has come”, shouts the bus conductor. Madhoo, woken up from her thoughts, gets down from the bus. She sees her mother waiting in the verandah. She simply walks past her Mom into her bedroom.
Madhoo sits down on her bed with a book and a pen in her hand. She tells herself, “I want to do an ‘extraordinary’ act of kindness and write about that in my essay.” An idea strikes her all of a sudden. She decides to spend all her pocket money in buying gifts for children of an orphanage in her neighborhood.
Madhoo informs her parents about her decision. They support her decision wholeheartedly.
The next day, Madhoo sets out to meet the children of the orphanage with lovely presents. She spends quality time with them. She promises to come back to them soon.
Madhoo is extremely happy and pleased with her extraordinary act of kindness. Her parents are also proud of her. And of course, she knows what to write in her essay. A perfect day indeed!
The morning alarm rings. Madhoo gets ready to go to the school. She wants to narrate her wonderful experience at the orphanage to Sohini.
The first bell rings. Sohini arrives late to class. Madhoo waves her hand at Sohini. Sohini ignores her and takes a seat away from Madhoo. Madhoo is extremely sad. She decides to talk to Sohini during break and figure out what the issue is.
As soon as the the bell rings, Madhoo runs to Sohini and asks, “Are you fine? Why are you avoiding me? I have something really exciting to tell you.”
Sohini reminds Madhoo how she hurt her by ignoring her during lunch break. On realizing her mistake, Madhoo apologizes to Sohini.
As the last bell rings, Madhoo gets ready to leave. She waits in the queue to get inside the bus when one of her juniors breaks the line to get into the bus. She tells the junior to maintain the queue like how everyone does. To her surprise, the junior reminds her how she once broke the line, stepped on her foot and got inside the bus without even feeling apologetic about it. Madhoo feels embarrassed. She silently gets inside the bus.
Madhoo quietly steps down when the bus stops before her house. She is crying. She runs into the kitchen and hugs her Mom. She narrates everything to her Mom – how her callousness hurt Sohini, how she shamelessly broke the queue to get inside the bus and how she was totally unaware when she stepped on her junior’s foot while getting inside the bus.
Madhoo’s Mom gives her a big hug. She smiles and tells her, “These are your lessons in kindness. To think of getting presents for orphaned kids and spending quality time with them are indeed great acts of kindness. So is to be attentive to people around you. A smile, a hug, an affectionate word are all expressions of kindness. Any act that uplifts the soul of a fellow being and yourself is an act of kindness.
Kindness is part of your ‘being’. Each one of us is kind to each other, to ourselves, consciously or unconsciously, now and then. What each one of us has to do is to ‘consciously’ practice kindness in our day-to-day life. When that is done, our hearts expand and so does others’ hearts expand as well.
Madhoo, my child, I am very glad to know that you have begun your journey. May the force be with you always.”
Madhoo thanks her Mom, walks into her room, takes a sheet of paper and writes down the title of her essay, “Madhoo’s lessons in kindness”.
__END__
