It was one of those Saturday nights when 2 niecese came over to our house to play with my daughter WL. At about 9 PM I suggested that we go for some 'teh tarik' like we do once in a while at the 24-hours prata place at Old Bedok Road. (Once, after one of these teh tarik sessions, I found that I could not sleep even at 3 AM, and I could hear the kids running and playing around on the floor upstairs oblivious to the fact they were suffering from the problem as me!)
That day, by about 10 PM the kids started pestering me to bring them for 'teh tarik'. I told WL that she will have to bring some money along (something I do quite often by now to teach her monetary concepts). So she took some money from her ang-pow collection and we went with grandpa, grandma and LL.
After the tea, the kids and grandma went for a stroll along the row of shops where the prata shop is. A while after that the kids came and told me enthusiastically about some poor kittens they saw lying on the five foot way. WL insisted I go along to see. When we got there the kids started talking about how pitiful the kittens looked and asked if we can bring them home. May be I did not look very enthusiastic about the idea so WL suggested bringing only one home. I disagreed and explained that their mom will be looking for them and will miss them if we take them away. On top of that the kittens were being taken care of by the people around there as there was some milk placed there for them to drink. The kids seemed satisfied with my explanation. So we left the kittens alone.
As we were walking back to our outdoor table at the prata shop, we saw an old man rummaging through the dustbin at the bus stop nearby. On the ground was some empty soft drink cans he had collected. Although I turned my head back to look at the man, I did not say anything. Did not even know that the kids noticed. It reminded me of a news report I read years ago about one such man who died after being knocked down by a car while going home late at night. That dead man was out with another friend of his to collect used cans in the middle of the night.
The next thing I knew was WL taking a 2 dollar note from her pocket and asking me if she can give it to the man. I said okay and left her to walk over to the man to hand over the money. From afar I could see that he was talking to WL and it took him like half a minute before he accepted the money from WL. I did not ask WL what the old man said to her but she came back to me looking quite happy with what she did. I carried her in my arms, gave her a peck on her cheek and whispered softly into her ear about how nice she had been with that gesture.
Interestingly, unlike the case of the poor kittens, her 2 cousins were not interested in the old man and did not partake in what happened.
No comments:
Post a Comment