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A.R.K
Mrs. Gupta was in a particularly bad mood that night. She had never been an extremely grumpy woman but her exterior was not ideal for inspiring confidence of friendship. And she had a guttural voice that almost sounded like that of a man, especially when on the phone. All in all, it gave her a somewhat dominating personality.
"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!"
The sound almost shook the whole restaurant, even the street walkers and bystanders had to take a moment of their busy lives to peek into the glass wall of the restaurant.
They saw a frail thin pale girl, maybe in her 20s standing near a table, gripping her own palms, her head slightly bent down, almost looked like she was bowing.
Near her was an enraged (to say the least) Mrs Gupta, who seemed to be reprimanding the poor girl about something. A close inspection revealed that the plate that Mrs Gupta had ordered took a tumble from the girl's hands right in front of the person expecting to eat it.
It was not such a big deal as even some of the bystanders pointed out. Even the manager had no qualms on the matter, a new plate could just as easily be prepared. Mrs Gupta seemed to be going out of her way to scold the clumsy waitress.
"It's one of those rich MADAMs" whispered a bystander outside to another. And many around, nodded in sync. Their judgement came from how they saw her, but no one understood.
Mrs Gupta had lost her husband to lung cancer about 6 years ago. The same year she also had to send her only son to study in America. The only thing guiding her through all this loneliness was the hope that one day her son will return back to her and she will not be alone anymore. But just a few hours before she entered the restaurant she had gotten a call from her son, informing her about a job offer from "GOOGLE". She knew exactly what this meant, but she also could not bear to be alone in that big house anymore and living in America was a dread to her. It was a conundrum, she wanted her boy to be happy, but she didn't want to be alone. "What should I do?" Is the thought that was going through her mind when the waitress choose the perfect timing to commit the blunder.
They say disturbing an animal when it's eating can be dangerous. Well, same can be said about mother's thinking about their child.
Finally, after almost 20 minutes of loud scolding, the manager stepped in, apologized on the girl's behalf, and promised a new order, "On the house, ofcourse."
The girl went inside, almost in tears, and after some time everything went back to normal.
When the new order came, Mrs Gupta filled herself up. Her house was nearby, but she hated eating alone in that big house on the weekends. So, she had a habit of strolling the Avenue in the evenings of Sunday's, seeing people, specially children, would cheer her up. And when she got hungry, she would choose one restaurant and just have dinner there. Having people around made the food tastier.
As her hunger went away, so did her anger, she was normally a very logical person. She thought about her own actions and realised how she had made such a big fuss. She felt specially sorry for the girl. Her teary eyed pale face kept coming into Mrs Gupta's mind again and again as she ate. Finally, she couldn't take it anymore.
When she was done, she called the manager, who came up with a nice smile on his face. She took out a 2000 rupees note from her purse and said.
"Could you please make sure that girl gets this tip."
The manager gave her his kindest smile and tilted his head in agreement. The price of her meal was only 430 rupees.
In the following days, she made the difficult choice and gave her blessing to her son's choice of working in Google and staying in America. He would visit her as many times as he could, but still for the majority of the years, she was a lonely old woman in a big empty house, of her late husband.
This became even worse when her son decided to marry a white girl. Mrs Gupta was a rational woman, she wasn't one to try and force her son, but still she had desired in her heart, a loyal Indian daughter-in-law who would keep her company and take care of her in her dying days.
And credit where it's due, the American girl tried her best to become her ideal "bahu". But it is not easy, infact it's almost impossible, for a Beverly Hills girl to become used to the hassles of Mumbai, which is quite harsh, even to the rich.
And the son and daughter-in-law never could convince Mrs Gupta to come to America. Her birth place was too precious for her.
The problem intensified when the daughter-in-law became pregnant. Mrs Gupta knew the parents would want their child to grow up in America. So she made the decision for them and ordered them to go back.
It was a decision she would soon regret, her American daughter-in-law was incapable of lots of things like cooking, cleaning etc, but she genuinely tried and worked hard. But the new servant lady was quite the opposite, who Mrs Gupta even suspected of stealing the silverware.
"It must have been hard for her" she thought as she wondered about her daughter-in-law, who had lived in a beautiful house, with maids doing all the work, who would suddenly willingly choose this life for herself.
"How lucky I am. How lucky my son is." She wondered.
After her family had come to visit her from America, on her granddaughter's 6th birthday. She suddenly collapsed after the party. Old age had finally come to say hello, it was "hypertension".
After that, the relationship of Mrs Gupta with her son soured, as she refused to leave India, again and again. They tried everything that they could think of, from emotional blackmail to manipulative lies. None worked on the mighty Mrs Gupta.
But she understood that the pressure of a dying mother and growing daughter could become too much for her son. So she acted on her own and applied for a nursing home. There was a lot of stigma surrounding old age homes in India, so she wanted her family as far away from the affair as possible. Thus, she tricked them and signed up with their consent.
The family came, had a fight and went back to America with incredible anger over the betrayal, but Mrs Gupta knew it was necessary.
When she was admitted however she was made to regret her decision. No one cared for her, the doctors went away after check up and worst of all the accountant kept her waiting and even ignored her when she asked where the washroom was. It was all becoming too much for her, she was just about to turn around and leave when someone held her hand.
"This way, Ma'am." Said the nurse, as she took Mrs Gupta down the corridor to the washroom. When she came out, the nurse was waiting for her, with a nice smile in her face. Something was familiar about her, and that smile.
"I have seen you somewhere" said Mrs Gupta, stressing her forehead lines trying to study the nurse's face.
She was a woman in her mid 30s, or she looked like it, very beautiful and her smile gave out a warm fuzzy feeling.
"Ma'am, my name is Mary. And we have met before." Saying that the nurse found a seat for Mrs Gupta. And then started telling the story of her college days when she was trying to make ends meet and was working at a restaurant. One day she was extremely absent minded, she did not have enough money to pay her exam fees. Due to that she messed up and was well scolded by a lady. After work that evening the manager gave her fifteen thousand and seventy rupees as tip saying that the lady who scolded her earlier gave it to her. Her exam fees was fifteen thousand rupees, the last day to register was the very next day.
"I REMEMBER YOU" shouted Mrs Gupta all of a sudden, turning the heads of every person in the corridor.
"It was thanks to you that I became nurse" said Mary, with the same kind smile as Mrs Gupta had once seen on Mary's former employers face.
Thanks to Mary's influence, Mrs Gupta's stay was smooth sailing from then on. Even her family buried their anger in America and came to visit her often. Mary and Mrs Gupta developed a lovely relationship.
Mary was a not incredibly popular with the other patients, she was originally clumsy to begin with despite having good medical knowledge, always making mistakes. And moreover she was raised as a devout Christian and loved telling Bible stories to her patients, who themselves were mostly strict Marathi Hindus, rediscovering their gods, near their final moments. Mention of other gods was blasphemy, and the blasphemous nurse was almost always chased out of the room when she tried telling them her stories.
Only Mrs Gupta listened and loved to listen, and Mary loved to tell them. After every story Mary loved to make up a moral of her own. One day she told Mrs Gupta the story of Noah's ark, and afterwards she asked her;
"Do you know what ARK means?"
"No. I don't." Said Mrs Gupta, in her old broken voice.
Mary smiled her kindest smile and said, "Act of Random Kindness."
"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!"
The sound almost shook the whole restaurant, even the street walkers and bystanders had to take a moment of their busy lives to peek into the glass wall of the restaurant.
They saw a frail thin pale girl, maybe in her 20s standing near a table, gripping her own palms, her head slightly bent down, almost looked like she was bowing.
Near her was an enraged (to say the least) Mrs Gupta, who seemed to be reprimanding the poor girl about something. A close inspection revealed that the plate that Mrs Gupta had ordered took a tumble from the girl's hands right in front of the person expecting to eat it.
It was not such a big deal as even some of the bystanders pointed out. Even the manager had no qualms on the matter, a new plate could just as easily be prepared. Mrs Gupta seemed to be going out of her way to scold the clumsy waitress.
"It's one of those rich MADAMs" whispered a bystander outside to another. And many around, nodded in sync. Their judgement came from how they saw her, but no one understood.
Mrs Gupta had lost her husband to lung cancer about 6 years ago. The same year she also had to send her only son to study in America. The only thing guiding her through all this loneliness was the hope that one day her son will return back to her and she will not be alone anymore. But just a few hours before she entered the restaurant she had gotten a call from her son, informing her about a job offer from "GOOGLE". She knew exactly what this meant, but she also could not bear to be alone in that big house anymore and living in America was a dread to her. It was a conundrum, she wanted her boy to be happy, but she didn't want to be alone. "What should I do?" Is the thought that was going through her mind when the waitress choose the perfect timing to commit the blunder.
They say disturbing an animal when it's eating can be dangerous. Well, same can be said about mother's thinking about their child.
Finally, after almost 20 minutes of loud scolding, the manager stepped in, apologized on the girl's behalf, and promised a new order, "On the house, ofcourse."
The girl went inside, almost in tears, and after some time everything went back to normal.
When the new order came, Mrs Gupta filled herself up. Her house was nearby, but she hated eating alone in that big house on the weekends. So, she had a habit of strolling the Avenue in the evenings of Sunday's, seeing people, specially children, would cheer her up. And when she got hungry, she would choose one restaurant and just have dinner there. Having people around made the food tastier.
As her hunger went away, so did her anger, she was normally a very logical person. She thought about her own actions and realised how she had made such a big fuss. She felt specially sorry for the girl. Her teary eyed pale face kept coming into Mrs Gupta's mind again and again as she ate. Finally, she couldn't take it anymore.
When she was done, she called the manager, who came up with a nice smile on his face. She took out a 2000 rupees note from her purse and said.
"Could you please make sure that girl gets this tip."
The manager gave her his kindest smile and tilted his head in agreement. The price of her meal was only 430 rupees.
In the following days, she made the difficult choice and gave her blessing to her son's choice of working in Google and staying in America. He would visit her as many times as he could, but still for the majority of the years, she was a lonely old woman in a big empty house, of her late husband.
This became even worse when her son decided to marry a white girl. Mrs Gupta was a rational woman, she wasn't one to try and force her son, but still she had desired in her heart, a loyal Indian daughter-in-law who would keep her company and take care of her in her dying days.
And credit where it's due, the American girl tried her best to become her ideal "bahu". But it is not easy, infact it's almost impossible, for a Beverly Hills girl to become used to the hassles of Mumbai, which is quite harsh, even to the rich.
And the son and daughter-in-law never could convince Mrs Gupta to come to America. Her birth place was too precious for her.
The problem intensified when the daughter-in-law became pregnant. Mrs Gupta knew the parents would want their child to grow up in America. So she made the decision for them and ordered them to go back.
It was a decision she would soon regret, her American daughter-in-law was incapable of lots of things like cooking, cleaning etc, but she genuinely tried and worked hard. But the new servant lady was quite the opposite, who Mrs Gupta even suspected of stealing the silverware.
"It must have been hard for her" she thought as she wondered about her daughter-in-law, who had lived in a beautiful house, with maids doing all the work, who would suddenly willingly choose this life for herself.
"How lucky I am. How lucky my son is." She wondered.
After her family had come to visit her from America, on her granddaughter's 6th birthday. She suddenly collapsed after the party. Old age had finally come to say hello, it was "hypertension".
After that, the relationship of Mrs Gupta with her son soured, as she refused to leave India, again and again. They tried everything that they could think of, from emotional blackmail to manipulative lies. None worked on the mighty Mrs Gupta.
But she understood that the pressure of a dying mother and growing daughter could become too much for her son. So she acted on her own and applied for a nursing home. There was a lot of stigma surrounding old age homes in India, so she wanted her family as far away from the affair as possible. Thus, she tricked them and signed up with their consent.
The family came, had a fight and went back to America with incredible anger over the betrayal, but Mrs Gupta knew it was necessary.
When she was admitted however she was made to regret her decision. No one cared for her, the doctors went away after check up and worst of all the accountant kept her waiting and even ignored her when she asked where the washroom was. It was all becoming too much for her, she was just about to turn around and leave when someone held her hand.
"This way, Ma'am." Said the nurse, as she took Mrs Gupta down the corridor to the washroom. When she came out, the nurse was waiting for her, with a nice smile in her face. Something was familiar about her, and that smile.
"I have seen you somewhere" said Mrs Gupta, stressing her forehead lines trying to study the nurse's face.
She was a woman in her mid 30s, or she looked like it, very beautiful and her smile gave out a warm fuzzy feeling.
"Ma'am, my name is Mary. And we have met before." Saying that the nurse found a seat for Mrs Gupta. And then started telling the story of her college days when she was trying to make ends meet and was working at a restaurant. One day she was extremely absent minded, she did not have enough money to pay her exam fees. Due to that she messed up and was well scolded by a lady. After work that evening the manager gave her fifteen thousand and seventy rupees as tip saying that the lady who scolded her earlier gave it to her. Her exam fees was fifteen thousand rupees, the last day to register was the very next day.
"I REMEMBER YOU" shouted Mrs Gupta all of a sudden, turning the heads of every person in the corridor.
"It was thanks to you that I became nurse" said Mary, with the same kind smile as Mrs Gupta had once seen on Mary's former employers face.
Thanks to Mary's influence, Mrs Gupta's stay was smooth sailing from then on. Even her family buried their anger in America and came to visit her often. Mary and Mrs Gupta developed a lovely relationship.
Mary was a not incredibly popular with the other patients, she was originally clumsy to begin with despite having good medical knowledge, always making mistakes. And moreover she was raised as a devout Christian and loved telling Bible stories to her patients, who themselves were mostly strict Marathi Hindus, rediscovering their gods, near their final moments. Mention of other gods was blasphemy, and the blasphemous nurse was almost always chased out of the room when she tried telling them her stories.
Only Mrs Gupta listened and loved to listen, and Mary loved to tell them. After every story Mary loved to make up a moral of her own. One day she told Mrs Gupta the story of Noah's ark, and afterwards she asked her;
"Do you know what ARK means?"
"No. I don't." Said Mrs Gupta, in her old broken voice.
Mary smiled her kindest smile and said, "Act of Random Kindness."
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