Blessings

On a hot summer's day, a group of beggars waited under a makeshift shed on the sidewalk near a busy intersection for the vehicles to stop. The beggars would hurriedly rush to the vehicles as soon as they stopped when the traffic lights turned red and come back to rest when they moved. Among them sat a battered old woman in a ragged saree with a pair of crutches by her sides. Despite being bereft of love and all worldly possessions, she had a divine face and content eyes. She had weak bones and therefore would get up occasionally to beg.  One morning when the signal lights turned red and vehicles stopped, the old woman on her crutches limped her way to a big shiny car and tapped the window pane. The driver, a rich man who was irked by the distraction, rolled down the window and stared angrily at the woman. The old beggar smiled and said, “God bless you, my son“.

The driver looked at her with contempt and rolled up the window. A few days later, the same car stopped again at that crossroads. The old woman again tottered to the car and tapped the window. “God have mercy on you, may all your troubles go away”, she gave the blessings with a smile on her lips. The rich man who was laden with worries of life and its obscurities, looked at the woman with scorn and yelled “stop nagging, I am not having anything for you” and drove away. The beggar, still smiling slowly returned to her place and sat down under the shed. A beggar in the group who was watching this asked her why she would waste her time with that driver who won’t give her anything! The old woman smiled and said, “well, looking at him, don’t you think that he needs my blessings more than I need his coins?”