A Poor lady Gives Her Best
We were distributing books at Chembur. One man comes up on stall. Wanting to buy the Krishna book in marathi, He asks for concession for the book. Inspite of our explanation of unable to reduce the cost, the man removes his purse. He takes out a big bundle of notes and then picks up just 130 rupees from it and hands us over saying that I will give 10 rs less as concession. Internally disgusted with him, we tell him that he can have the book and that I will pay the 10 rs from my pocket. He leaves with the Book.
Next scene is a very poor lady coming on the stall. Her clothes are very old. She inquires about the book. She wants to buy a Gita for her young son. She is undecided about which language her son would like to read in. We helped her and she agreed to take the Marathi Gita. She soon got her purse out and searched for money in it. All she could produce was 50 rs from her small purse. Seeing her enthusiasm, I told her to take the gita and that I would pay the remaining from my pocket. She took the gita happily and was thankful. But she still paused before walking away. She again removed her small purse to check in. She removed 50 rupees. She said I have to buy my food for todays cooking with this. But then I need only 40 rs for my ration. So she gave another 10 rs and said pls keep this also. All the devotees happily accepted the money and we all saw each other at what experience it was with the 2 kinds of people we just met. One having money but not giving full cost. Another having no money but trying to give full cost.
Abhay Chaitanya Prabhu, Sion
