Story 3 / Thanks To The Thief

With age Nana’s eyesight got weaker.

He sat with glasses so thick his eyes looked animated / with a magnifying glass in one hand and a soft copy of his emails in another. Hence I intervened, I read and wrote his emails through summer vacations and in return he told me his life stories. 

THE ONLY FAIR PAY I HAVE EVER RECEIVED. 

I am going to share one of them with you.

Anant Chand, my beautiful Nana worked at the Don Mueang Airport, Bangkok. 

His wife Gangotri Devi, who he lovingly called Gaur use to scout the local vegetable markets in the afternoon. 

Their five kids spent their days in their respective schools.

Leaving his home empty during the afternoons.

Nana came home early from work and found a huge truck parked right outside, it contained everything of monetary value from his house. He entered the main gate and found a young boy in his early twenties engrossed in unscrewing window grills of the house, focused to a point where he did not notice Nana enter. 

Nana entered his starkly EMPTY home, took a pause and walked back to the stranger that was still failing at unscrewing his window grills and politely asked him “ Son, if you have already robbed my house clean then why waste time unscrewing my window grills and not RUN ? These are not precious.”

The boy looked at him dazed, “Sir I was finished robbing your house an hour ago, but I could not get these beautiful grills out of my mind, I HAD to take them with me.”

The strange boy helped Nana put all the things back into the house from the truck and promised to pick a different occupation. 

( After every story, he would tell me what the moral of the story was. )

“Bitiyan beauty is random, it can be found in anything if you are willing to look. 

To that boy my ORDINARY window grills were BEAUTIFUL.”

Words by : Palak Singh