July 21, 2011

Two boys and an old man

From a friend, earlier tonight, this Bandra story.

Sent to me because I tweeted this: "Tragedy happens 100m from the room where you are. Would you run out to see if you can help? Twice now I know of people who didn't. Why?" Sent to me to remind me that there are a lot of fine folks out there, and that I can learn things from 7th standard kids.

Some minor edits, among which names are initialized to protect something or the other.

***

This evening R was going down ZigZag road on the scooter when he saw an old man lying on the side of the road clutching his chest and frothing at the mouth. He went to him. The guy had medicines in his pocket and indicated to R to give him one. As R did this, lots of people stopped. One brought water.

Then two little boys in a car with their driver stopped to ask what happened. These were small hipcat Pali Hill boys, 7th standard. They insisted that R put the old guy in the car and take him to the nearby Holy Family Hospital.

Once there they acted far more mature for their age than we give kids credit for. One went to get the man's reports. Held the old man's hand. Asked him if he wanted to eat something. They refused to leave (the boy whose car it was had already called his mum). They even bought R a cheese sandwich (R had no money on him).

Turns out the old man had lost his daughter in an accident yesterday and had come to Bandra to ask a friend for money. The guy was not home so this 70 year-old was going back to Thana, to his home at a construction site.

I dropped some cash off with R for hospital etc and then the boys dug into their pockets and gave the old guy the 300 bucks they'd been given to spend at candies.

R said he won't be cynical anymore. He will of course. But those boys are lovely!