26, Kailash Colony,
Agra : 282003
3rd March, 2010
My dear Anubha,
I hope this letter finds you in good cheer. I haven’t heard from you since long and I do wish you would keep in touch.
Anubha I would like to share with you a recent experience of mine. Our Class, Std. XB, was taken to visit an Old Age Home where we spent half a day interacting with the residents.
We went there in a picnic mood thinking that we would quickly distribute the sarees, shawls, footwear, toiletry, eatables and medicines and then proceed to have fun. However what actually happened was very different. The poignant faces of women aged seventy five to ninety kept us rivetted to the place much longer than we had intended to stay. Some of them were so lonely that they caught hold of our hands, cajoling and persuading us to spend some more time with them.
Some talked of their children and grand children whose faces they had forgotten for they never came to visit them. Some talked with nostalgia about their own school and” college days when they were of our age. They remembered those happy days and how naughty they themselves had been. We had prepared some songs for them which they enjoyed very much. A handful of them even joined us in the singing disregarding their cracked, out of tune voices. They looked at us with such fondness and affection that we decided to stay there as long as possible. It was much later we realized how we felt and how something, within us had changed forever. I felt truly happy and satisfied that we had done something worthwhile. I also felt that what we had done that day was a generous and magnanimous gesture. We had come out of our selfish selves and extended a helping hand to those who most deserved it.
Now I will look at old people not with impatience and irritation but in a more understanding and mature manner. I will now empathise better with them. Do convey my regards to uncle and Aunty. Reply soon as I will wait anxiously for your letter.
Your loving friend,
Aastha
