Tera Kiya Meetha Lage

I vividly remember it was a cold December evening. A part of the house we currently live in was still under construction. My father had just purchased sanitary and plumbing fixtures to be installed in the newly constructed bathrooms. At around 8 pm, the delivery guy was at our door with his truck full of the stuff we had bought. As I helped him unload and place the things in our garage, I noticed that the guy didn’t have any warm clothes on. He was shivering in the cold but he did not for once pause in the middle of what we were doing. He continued his work and kept thankfully smiling at me for providing him a helping hand.

After we were done, my mom brought us coffee. He sipped gratefully, holding the warm mug with both hands, trying to beat the cold. I asked how long it would take him to reach home and dive under his blanket. He replied, “I don’t have a place to live in. My mother is at the cancer hospital. I had to sell our house to pay her bills. I sleep in my truck.” I didn’t have the guts to look at his eyes anymore.

Finishing his coffee, he thanked my mom for it and got up to leave. I requested him to have dinner with us but he politely turned me down by saying that after a full day’s work he visits his mother every night at the hospital before she sleeps. He left, quietly.

Eight years have passed. Neither have I seen him again nor do I remember his name. But, I will never forget his calm, never-complaining, grateful smiling face in the midst of a personal crisis and his love for his mother. As I write about him today, this stands out to me as the most selfless love one can have for another and the highest form of surrender a person can have on the divine. As our master frequently says, “Tera kiya, meetha lage!“