The Hoarding

It just had to rain again didn’t it? Rishi had to make a quick run to the market because he was out of matches and the inverter would not start again. He didn’t have the cash to replace the battery since business was slow these days and he had been barely breaking even for the last few months. Painting hoardings was not as profitable as he had thought it would be. His workers were all sick this month. So he kept putting off the replacement of the inverter battery. And now it was pouring again. He hated the rain.

As he was standing at the shop, he saw the old lady again. She was always doing the same thing, gathering up all the broken glass bottles, even though it hurt her hands and the blood kept flowing. It made him squirm, but he couldn’t do anything to help her. He had tried to give her money once but she had declined saying, “Sahib! I do not beg nor ask for charity. Please remember that you should not encourage begging, the things they do to children and women is too horrible to narrate. I’d rather die an honest woman than beg or receive charity.” That was strange really, an old and apparently poor woman getting on the high moral ground when she was clearly in need of money. And that wasn’t all. She said the same thing to everyone who gave her money. It puzzled Rishi.

But today she came up to him. She said, “Son! I am a very old woman. I’m dying of tuberculosis. I need a favor from you.”

Rishi said, “Amma! You should have taken the money that time.” She said, “God bless you son, but I do not want money. I know you paint hoardings on the roads. I want you to design a hoarding for me before I die.”

And that was the last time he saw her. He had agreed to design the hoarding for her. He went to see her in the hut she lived in the next day. But she had already passed away. A note addressed to him said, “Thank you son! I can die in peace now!”

And he looks up at the sky, and the hoarding he had gotten painted for her that day. It said, “Prevent Begging. Do not give money to any one who begs, you will be doing them a huge favor. In the memory of a woman who spent her entire life fighting this evil. Please do not give alms to the poor.”

He had done something for free for the old woman and yet he felt like the richest man on earth. A single tear trickled down his cheek as he looked at his best work yet.