FAITH

The summer can be particularly harsh in the month of June in Delhi. It is also the time when most of the schools reopen after long vacations. Rahul’s school too was opening the next day. Rahul thought that he needed a new pencil box, the one he had seen a couple of weeks ago at the stationery shop. He was with his mother then and she told him that he can have it once the vacation ends. So Rahul took fifty rupees from her mother and went to the stationery shop. Rahul was there in no time at all but the last day of the vacations meant it was busy time at the shop.

The box was for forty rupees but the shopkeeper mistook the fifty rupee note for a hundred rupee one and returned sixty rupees. Rahul got nervous, he took a couple of careful steps backwards, turned like nothing had happened and just strolled out of the shop. But the moment he was sure that he was out of sight, he ran as if his life depended on it, he wanted to vanish into thin air and reappear at some place far-far away. Not only his body but his mind was racing as well, what would he do with the sixty rupees, even if he returned ten since the box was up for forty rupees, he was still left with fifty.

Returning these fifty to the shopkeeper was the last thing he would do. Giving it to mother would surely mean loosing the money and a sound dressing down. “Ice Cream”, it was hot but he wasn’t in a mood to spend fifty rupees on ice cream, “no surely not”. He thought of buying the tennis ball that he had wanted but father had said that fifty rupees was too much for a tennis ball, and today if he saw the ball with him, Rahul wouldn’t be able to answer his questions. “Not the tennis ball”. He thought of going to Ravi’s home and discussing but he didn’t want to share, not with Ravi atleast, remembering how he had behaved last week when he bought a new car. He wondered how beggars got off by spending other peoples money.
He thought of burying the money but soon realized the stupidity of the idea, it was evening already and surely someone would see him. How stupid it would feel to come and find the money gone. “But what about hiding it in the book shelf?” The thought of his mother discovering that money made him queasy. He didn’t want her to think that his son was stealing or something.

Rahul’s mind was in a muddle. He wasn’t sure what to do with the money. He just couldn’t think of anything. There was a temple on the way back home. Rahul put the money in the donation box of the temple. With a heavy heart he headed back home. Father was already home and he had bought that tennis ball for him. And his Mother was serving Ice Cream.

In my opinion, the author has attempted to look at the (rather shaky) foundations of faith but probably the story is a lot open-ended than the author would have liked. What do YOU think?