On one of the sunny days during winter,
just as when I was having a good sleep, I suddenly heard a voice
shouting, "Wake up, wake up!” said Reza, my younger brother to me, "We
have to be at the bus stop in about 15 minutes and you know what will
happen if we are late again for the second time!” I rushed out of my
bed, soon got ready. We hurried to get to the bus stop on time. We ran
as fast as we could but sadly in front of our eyes, the bus turned in
the corner and disappeared…
We sighed and looked at the empty street when suddenly Reza
shouted pointing his finger, "The market!” Being disappointed I replied,
"Oh please, it’s not the time to buy candy; we have to find a way to
school."Don’t worry,” he said, "I have an idea. The bus makes several
detours, so if we take the right roads, we can make a shortcut and catch
the bus on time.” I agreed to his plan.
We headed towards the market but we had
to slow down because of the crowd. The market was a very busy place as
always and there was a lot of commotion. We were sure that we can’t make
it through this huge crowd, but all we could do was to wait patiently.
All of a sudden, we heard a woman crying
out, "Hey, my purse!” We stared at her totally confused. But later, we
managed to notice that a young man, dressed and masked in black, was
running with a purse in his hand. The public did not seem to bother
about it. My brother looked at me for once and started to follow him. I
understood what he meant and we ran in different directions. Soon
enough, we surrounded him and at a safe spot, we jumped on him.
"Gotcha!” my brother said, with a heroic smile.
The thief tried his best to escape, but
we managed to overpower him. "How dare you steal someone else’s money?
What if that’s the only money that woman has to run her family?” I
asked. The thief became very quiet and said nothing. We were shocked.
"What’s wrong with you?” asked Reza. The thief cried, "It’s my family…
I’m a poor man with no job, no knowledge and no happiness. My family
eats a day and stays hungry the next. Moreover, my child is ill and I
can’t buy him medicines.” We heard his sad story and felt pity of him.
"Does that mean you will destroy other’s life?” I asked. The thief shook
his head while weeping. He finally realized his mistake and returned to
the woman. Now, we did see the woman there, but along with police!
Before anything, we urged the woman to
forgive him and forget and we also told her the story. The thief
returned back her purse and the woman kindly thanked, "I’m very grateful
to you all. Today, by returning me my money, you have saved my child’s
life. I’m a widow working as a pharmacist. I thank you all very much.”
The thief was not handed to the police. We then separated on our own
ways with a happy smile.
All this made us forget completely
about school. "Uh oh! We are in trouble now.” I frightened. My brother
put his hand around my shoulder while walking and said, "We might have
missed our school lessons, but we have learnt a great lesson today…” Moral:We always
think that ‘others’ are happier and wealthier than us, but we sometimes
forget that we are ‘others’ for someone else…