Wonderful story….with POWERFUL lesson
A woman baked
chapatti (roti) for members of her family and an extra one for a hungry passer-by.
She kept the extra chapatti on the window sill, for whosoever would take it
away. Every day, a hunchback came and took away the chapatti. Instead of
expressing gratitude, he muttered the following words as he went his way: “The
evil you do remains with you: The good you do, comes back to you!” This went
on, day after day. Every day, the hunchback came, picked up the chapatti and
uttered the words:
“The evil you do
remains with you: The good you do, comes back to you!” The woman felt
irritated. “Not a word of gratitude,” she said to herself… “Every day this
hunchback utters this jingle! What does he mean?” One day, exasperated, she
decided to do away with him. “I shall get rid of this hunchback,” she said. And
what did she do? She added poison to the chapatti she prepared for him!
As she was about to
keep it on the window sill, her hands trembled. “What is this I am doing?” she
said. Immediately, she threw the chapatti into the fire, prepared another one
and kept it on the window sill. As usual, the hunchback came, picked up the
chapatti and muttered the words: “The evil you do, remains with you: The good
you do, comes back to you!”
The hunchback
proceeded on his way, blissfully unaware of the war raging in the mind of the
woman. Every day, as the woman placed the chapatti on the window sill, she
offered a prayer for her son who had gone to a distant place to seek his
fortune. For many months, she had no news of him... She prayed for his safe
return.
That evening, there
was a knock on the door. As she opened it, she was surprised to find her son
standing in the doorway. He had grown thin and lean. His garments were tattered
and torn. He was hungry, starved and weak. As he saw his mother, he said, “Mom,
it’s a miracle I’m here. While I was but a mile away, I was so famished that I
collapsed. I would have died, but just then an old hunchback passed by. I
begged of him for a morsel of food, and he was kind enough to give me a whole
chapatti. As he gave it to me, he said, “This is what I eat everyday: today, I
shall give it to you, for your need is greater than mine!”
” As the mother heard
those words, her face turned pale. She leaned against the door for support. She
remembered the poisoned chapatti that she had made that morning. Had she not
burnt it in the fire, it would have been eaten by her own son, and he would
have lost his life!
It was then that she
realized the significance of the words: “The evil you do remains with you: The
good you do, comes back to you!” Do well and don’t ever stop doing well, even
if it is not appreciated at that time. If you like this, share it with others
and I bet so many lives would be touched.
The End
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