Such an affectionate bond⁵⁷

One incident I am telling which you have not heard. Even if you have heard it, kindly say you have not heard it, so that I can get joy!

This story took place in 1935 or 1936, when I was four or five years old. Before I became a permanent member, I went six times to the Ashram with my family. We were children. We were not allowed, not allowed to stay at the Ashram! For a month we used to rent a very big house for our whole family.

About sixty or seventy metres away from our rented house, there was a very old lady. You have seen Satyajit Ray’s movie Pather Panchali. In Pather Panchali there is a very old lady with a stick. This old lady was like that. She had a tinier than the tiniest fruit shop. I was a little boy. I used to go to her place to buy only one guava. I was not interested in other fruits or things that she had. The guava was smaller than the smallest, but ripe. It cost one paisa. You cannot divide the paisa. It is such a ridiculous amount if you are dealing with American dollars. The guava also was tinier than the tiniest.

The old lady was very fond of me. We liked each other so much. I used to go in the morning to get the guava, small but ripe. I enjoyed it very much. One month we used to spend at the Ashram, so every day I went there.

Every fourth day or so, she would not take money from me. She would give me a guava free. I would say, “No, no, no, no,” but she would grab my hands and put the guava in them. She liked me so much.

On the last day, when we were about to leave, I told her, “I am not going to come any more.”

This I said in my kind of Tamil. Many years later, when I came to Pondicherry and became permanent in the Ashram, at that time I could speak Tamil — simple Tamil. At this time I managed to make the old lady understand that the following day I would leave. Immediately there were tears in her eyes and tears in my eyes. Then she gave me four guavas. I wanted to pay, but she would not take money. I was dying to give her the money, but she would not take it. I had enough money for four guavas, but she would not take it.

I came back home to our place there. My eldest sister saw that I was very sad. I was almost shedding tears. She asked, “What is wrong with you?”

I said, “This old lady likes me so much. Today she did not take money from me, and four guavas she has given me free. I am very sad that she will not accept the money.”

My sister said, “I am going with you. I will compel her to take the money.”

My sister by that time knew quite a few Tamil words, many, many more than I did. We went there, and the old lady was still shedding tears. My sister wanted to give her money for my four guavas. She was determined not to take it.

My sister Arpita was famous for her determination. Nobody could compete with her! She spent so much time with this old lady and finally she gave her much more money than the cost of the guavas that I had taken home.

At that time three souls were all shedding tears, but tears of joy, not tears of pain. There was no pain at that time. The lady, very, very old and very thin, was weeping, I was weeping and my sister also was weeping because such an affectionate bond an old lady and I had developed.

I was either four or five years old — that much I know. Like this one, a few other absolutely new stories I will tell.

From:Sri Chinmoy,Only one power, Agni Press, 2015
Sourced from https://srichinmoylibrary.com/oop