"sharing is caring!"

Hello folks, another weekend and another story for you! Hope you'll like it.

This pandemic is taking a toll on everyone especially the financially backward section, we've all witnessed people struggling a lot for one meal during this desperate times, these terrifying visuals spread all over the media and social media platforms not only sent a chill down my spine, but took me down the memory lane too.

This memory of mine is very meagre one, I might not be precise, but I assume this occurred when I was around 9 or 10 years old, these were the times when my dad used to drop me to school on his chetak scooter, I sat behind him, wrapping my arms around his stomach, clad in a pink shirt and blue trousers, geared up with my bag, a small triangle hanky pinned to my shirt to clean my nose, cropped hair and face smeared with talcum powder, this was my attire back then. Dad ran a business and therefore he had to hurry up after dropping me to school, this was the scene everyday, he stopped in front of school, I got down, he handed me the lunchbag hanging near his legs, and swiftly he drove away and I strolled into the school.

While this happened regularly, one incident occured out of the blue on a sunny day.

I was made presentable by my fashion designer, my mom! Just like I mentioned above, my dad was already on the vehicle, waiting for me, I rushed to the vehicle, have him my lunchbox, took the support of my dad and climbed with great difficulty, it was nothing less than rock climbing, and after securing my seat, he drove to school, we reached school, I got down and he drove off, he completely forgot that he dropped his kid without handing him over the lunchbox which was packed by his mom with so much love, not foreseeing that he might leave his kid hungry in the break, I stood there awestruck wondering what to do, I couldn't think a lot, I was in 3rd grade, I just went in and attended classes least worried about what might happen.

File photo, source : pexels

The bell rings and probably 3 hours later, it's lunch break, we all stood up and prayed before eating, our teacher Akshata ma'am, didn't leave the class for lunch, since we were kids and needed monitoring all the while.

Everyone began to open their boxes and start eating, in 30 seconds, my classroom was a food fair, few minutes later Akshata ma'am noticed that I was just sitting idle instead of eating, she walks up to me and asked, "Eshwar, where's your lunch?"

I told her what happened and she left my bench, walked upto the podium and said, "Children, your classmate Eshwar hasn't brought lunch today, shouldn't we all give him lunch? I shall place my lid with some of my food in front of him, you can come near him and give him a part of your food, sharing is caring" 

After saying that, she placed her lid in front of me with a portion of her food, slowly one by one, all of my classmates started placing fractions of their food in that lid and in few minutes, I had a platter of everyone's lunch on my desk,

Akshata ma'am said, "Good children, we shall do this everytime one of your classmates forgets to get their lunch"

The break was done and two hours later, the guard comes to our classroom with my lunch bag, he shouted "Eshwar!" And I went to go collect my lunch bag, I was no more hungry so I didn't open the bag, carried it back home and narrated everything to my mom.

This gesture by Akshata ma'am had a deep impact on me, further, everytime when a classmate forgot their lunch, I made sure I shared my lunch with them because ma'am had rightly said sharing is caring.

During these tough times, shouldn't we all be helping another Eshwar who's been wrestling life? I do not urge you to completely give away your lunchbox to him, I please you to give him a fragment of your lunch, let's make sure the Eshwar out there is not hungry in his lunch break! What goes around, come around!