Menon's Munificence (834 words)

(Do not miss this touching story of a different Postman and not the one you might have read earlier in the blog)

Menon has been working on this beat as a postman for several years. It was not certainly a posh area dotted as it was with many slums and lower middle-class houses of government housing board. The area of his beat was also not too extensive to cover in his old bicycle. There were no heavy parcels for him to carry as these people hardly got any gifts. What they received were mostly money orders from kith and kin and postcards filled all over the card mostly in illegible writings. It was given to his lot to read and explain the content.

 Though a Keralite, he was born and brought up in Tamil Nad and could easily read and write Tamil. He knew most of the people by name and always had a kind word or two to exchange. They were guileless people and regarded him with respect despite his tattered khaki uniform and much-worn shoes. Of late his vision was giving him some trouble and he had been putting off a visit to the hospital. On summer days when the sun was hot, they offered him cool water from a mud pot. Menon never regarded his duty as an imposition but as a social work providing him with an opportunity to enjoy meeting people and listen to them.

Menon was nearing retirement age. His only son had gone to some Middle East country on a small job and there was practically no contact thereafter. His eldest daughter fell in love with a boy from Kerala who had no steady job but married him despite Menon’s reservations about the chap. He had learnt that they were leading a happy life though passing through difficult times without a steady income. She came once after marriage but had not visited him for almost five years. He had two more daughters studying.

Menon felt his pocket to see whether the hundred rupees note he had was safely there. He was to take his wife to the doctor but put it off until the first week when he would have received his salary. He was to take some medicines urgently. She has been ailing for long and he had spent most of his savings on her treatment. He found it difficult to make both ends meet and was always short of money.

As he was entering a narrow alley to deliver a money order, he saw Bhagyam lying on a bench outside her hut. An old woman past 70, emaciated with shrunken eyes and pale in colour, she gave the appearance of one whose end was not far away.

“Menon”, she hailed as he was moving away. “Is there any money order for me from my son?” she asked. This was the daily refrain and Menon would stand patiently by her side and tell her consolingly that it should come anytime if her son had remitted. He would even mentally curse that wretch for leaving his old mom to fend for herself. In his memory, she had not received any remittance after the first year or two. The tragic part is that the old woman’s daughter had left in her mom’s care a young daughter of ten years when she died of cancer. Her husband had deserted her long back.

This day he could not wrench himself away from her as he saw tears flowing from her eyes and she started sobbing. He sat by her side and said softly “Bhagyam, do not cry. Is this a new development for you to feel sorry for now? What is bothering you so much?”

“Menon, I would have preferred hell to this life and taken poison but for this unlucky girl burdened on me by my daughter. She has not eaten a morsel of food for the last two days. I don’t mind my starving but I cannot be a witness to this young thing silently suffering. Please see inside the hut. She is lying folded with hands on her stomach. “she cried loudly.

Menon could not suppress his eyes from becoming moist. Without a second thought, he took the only hundred rupee note from his pocket and gave it to her telling “Get something to eat immediately. Manage a few days with this money. I know one person in my beat who is running a poor home. I will ask him to take you both. He will ensure your granddaughter comes up in life. Don’t worry, he is a very good man Come on, get up and get some idlies for both of you.”

As he got up, he thought of his suffering wife and muttered to himself that he had to choose first the needier and that he would find some way to get his wife medicines. She can wait for a day with no great harm but Bhagyam and her granddaughter cannot.

(“One's life has value so long as one attributes value to the life of others, by means of love, friendship, indignation and compassion”. Simone de Beauvoir}