Old Ben’s Prayer (574 words)

As I deleted some old emails and messages today to create storage space, I came across luckily this touching and inspiring write-up by Gary Lee Tolley from someone. I  wish to share with you, knowing well that some of you would have read this earlier.

           

Gary Lee Tolley

A Minister passing through his church
In the middle​ of the day,
Decided to pause by the altar
To see who comes to pray.
Just then, the back door opened,
And a man came down the aisle,
The minister frowned as he saw the man
Hadn't shaved in a while.
His shirt was torn and shabby,
And his coat was worn and frayed,
The man knelt down and bowed his head,
Then rose and walked away.

In the days that followed at precisely noon,
The preacher saw this chap,
Each time he knelt just for a moment,
A lunch pail in his lap.
Well, the minister's suspicions grew,
With robbery a main fear,
.

He decided to stop and ask the man,
'What are you doing here?'
The old man said he was a factory worker
And lunch was half an hour
Lunchtime was his prayer time,
For finding strength and power.
I stay only a moment

Because the factory's far away;
As I kneel here talking to the Lord,
This is kinda what I say:

.

'I JUST CAME BY TO TELL YOU, LORD,
HOW HAPPY I HAVE BEEN,
SINCE WE FOUND EACH OTHER'S FRIENDSHIP
AND YOU TOOK AWAY MY SIN.
DON'T KNOW MUCH OF HOW TO PRAY,

BUT I THINK ABOUT YOU EVERY DAY.
SO, JESUS, THIS IS BEN,
JUST CHECKING IN TODAY.'

.
The minister feeling foolish,
Told Ben that it was fine.
He told the man that he was welcome
To pray there anytime.
'It's time to go, and thanks,' Ben said
As he hurried to the door.
Then the minister knelt there at the altar,
Which he'd never done before.
His cold heart melted, warmed with love,
As he met with Jesus there.
As the tears flowed down his cheeks,
He repeated old Ben's prayer:

.

'I JUST CAME by TO TELL YOU, LORD,
HOW HAPPY I'VE BEEN,
SINCE WE FOUND EACH OTHER'S FRIENDSHIP
AND YOU TOOK AWAY MY SIN.
I DON'T KNOW MUCH OF HOW TO PRAY,
BUT I THINK ABOUT YOU EVERY DAY.
SO, JESUS, THIS IS ME,
JUST CHECKING IN TODAY.'
.

Past noon one day, the minister noticed
That old Ben hadn't come.
As more days passed and still no Ben,
He began to worry some.
At the factory, he asked about him,

Learning he was ill.
The hospital staff was worried,
But he'd given them a thrill.

.

The week that Ben was with them,
Brought changes in the ward.
His smiles and joy contagious.
Changed people were his reward.
The head nurse couldn't understand
Why Ben could be so glad,
When no flowers, calls or cards came,
Not a visitor he had.
.

The minister stayed by his bed,
He voiced the nurse's concern:
No friends had come to show they cared.
He had nowhere to turn.

Looking surprised, old Ben spoke up
And with a winsome smile;
'The nurse is wrong, she couldn't know,
He's been here all the while.'
Everyday at noon He comes here,
A dear friend of mine, you see,
He sits right down and takes my hand,
Leans over and says to me:
.

'I JUST CAME BY TO TELL YOU, BEN,
HOW HAPPY I HAVE BEEN,
SINCE WE FOUND THIS FRIENDSHIP,
AND I TOOK AWAY YOUR SIN .
I THINK ABOUT YOU ALWAYS
AND I LOVE TO HEAR YOU PRAY,
AND SO BEN, THIS IS JESUS,
JUST CHECKING IN TODAY .'
.

Apartment 213 (words 546)

 

The police van screeched to a halt in front of the old apartment complex, its red-and-blue lights reflecting in the puddles on the cracked pavement. Two officers, guns drawn, charged up the stairwell to the second floor, stopping outside apartment 213.

They rang the bell. No answer.

“Try it,” one officer said.

The door creaked open with ease.

Inside, the television blared late-night commercials. The room stank of blood and cheap air freshener. A young woman, about 25, lay sprawled on the sofa, her nightgown soaked in red, her lifeless eyes wide open in horror. Deep stab wounds puckered her torso, blood splattered across the walls.

Standing beside her was a large man in his mid-forties. Faded jeans with a sweat-stained T-shirt. His hair was wild, and his hands trembled slightly, coated with drying blood.

One officer approached cautiously, checked the woman’s pulse, then shone a flashlight into her eyes. He didn’t need to speak, but murmured anyway:

“Dead.”

The second officer turned to the man. “Are you the one who called us in?”

The man nodded slowly. “You want to know who killed her?” His voice was cold, detached. “Here. Evidence.”

Before either officer could stop him, he snatched a bloody kitchen knife from the sofa and stabbed the woman’s body again and again, grunting with every plunge.

“Drop the knife! Now!” barked the officer, raising his weapon.

The man paused, then let the knife clatter to the floor. He raised his hands, smirking.

As one officer handcuffed him, the other asked, “Why’d you, do it?”

“Bedroom,” the man said. “Go see for yourself.”

In the dimly lit bedroom, the second officer found another body, this one male, late twenties, clad in pyjama. A silk tie was wrapped tightly around his neck. His skull caved in, possibly from the ornate brass lamp now lying askew on the floor.

“Who’s this?” the officer called out.

“Hell, if I know,” the cuffed man replied from the living room. “First time I’ve laid eyes on him.”

“The woman. Is she your wife?”

“What do you think? My mistress? Of course, she’s my wife,” the man spat.

The officer stared at him. “So… why kill them?”

The man laughed, short and manic. “For fun. What kind of stupid question is that?”

A ringtone pierced the silence. The second officer retrieved a mobile phone from the dead man’s pyjama pocket. The screen showed a missed call to 100, placed just minutes earlier. He exchanged a confused glance with his partner.

They called in security from the building gate.

“That man,” the guard said, nodding at the cuffed intruder, “Never seen him before. The other two? They’ve lived here for years. Married. Quiet. Kept to themselves.”

The officers looked at one another, piecing it together.

Just as one opened his mouth to speak, “Cut!” shouted a voice off-camera. “Pack up for the day.” The director seemed happy with the day’s outcome.

Immediately, the tension broke, bringing much relief. Technicians emerged from the shadows. The ‘dead’ actors sat up, yawning. The blood was wiped off with towels. The killer stretched and took a sip from a whisky bottle.

Though the gory illusion was shattered, the air was still thick for a few moments, with morbid cruelty before loud laughter and banter followed.

I am non-violent (146 words)

(Very short stories seem to be the flavour of the season. Here is one for your reading.)

 I don’t kill cockroaches, mice, or mosquitoes.

I’m non-violent by principle, though I don’t interfere with others.

At 6 PM, I returned home from the office and entered my room.

Near the corner table, a cockroach stood still, brownish-black, its antennae twitching.

Even a firm stomp didn’t move it.

“Cockroach, cockroach !” I called out to the kitchen.

My wife came running, broom in hand.“Where?”

“Under the table, staring back, twitching its tentacles,” I said.

She swung. I stepped back to the hall.

Our son ran in with a spray; our daughter followed, wielding a rolled newspaper.

Peeking from the hall, with eyes half closed, I watched them sigh in relief after the collective kill.

Seeing my expression, part sad, part revolted, my wife laughed.

“What if it were a leopard or a mad dog, you timid man?”

“Don’t you know I’m strictly non-violent?”

Their laughter answered

 

The cat is out of the bag (680 words)

The kitchen has long been considered the woman’s domain. Traditionally, there was a tacit understanding: the wife managed the dining table while the husband focused on earning a livelihood. Rarely did men step into the kitchen, much less learn the secrets behind the delicious meals their wives prepared.

Growing up, I was no exception. I thrived on the culinary delights my mother served daily. Even a hastily made mulligatawny rasam, thrown together when she was in a hurry, became ambrosia when a spoonful of ghee was added to hot rice. Nothing else would suffice once I’d tasted that.

Everything changed after I married Meena. Raised in the North, she had visited the South only once before our wedding, for a pilgrimage to Tirupati. Her brief week at my family home in Chennai after the wedding gave her no real chance to learn my mother’s methods or absorb the subtle variations unique to our kitchen.

Soon after, we moved to Calcutta, where I was working. With no firsthand knowledge of my mother’s style, Meena relied on her culinary instincts. Her cooking carried the aroma of garam masala, kala namak, and jeera powder. The staple was roti, accompanied by a flavorful fusion of Punjabi, Rajasthani, and UP-style side dishes. There was little trace of the South Indian flair I was used to. Then it was agreed that she would cook daily in the mornings, Tamilian type, with the help of Meenakshi Ammal culinary book and in the evenings whatever she wished.

Initially, I grumbled foolishly at times, claiming that her carefully prepared dishes didn’t match the taste of my mother’s, even though she insisted she followed Meenakshi Ammal’s book to the letter. Initially, her dishes felt unfamiliar to my tongue. But soon I came to appreciate her skill. She was, after all, talented in many fields, and her prowess in the kitchen was undeniable, especially when our North Indian friends and their families raved about her creations and sought her guidance for their own parties.

Still, I quietly held on to the belief that my mother’s cooking was the gold standard.

A year later, we went to Chennai for a holiday, and once again I savoured the comforting familiarity of sambar, vattha kuzhambu, various rasams, and a delightful mix of side dishes that changed with each meal.

One afternoon, as I was contentedly polishing off my mother’s sumptuous lunch, I overheard Meena talking to her. “Amma,” she said, “I am making mostly our type of food with the help of Meenakshi Ammal's book, except evenings when generally guests drop in. Though your son eats what I cook without complaint, he relishes your dishes more; the flavour is so distinct. Could you share with me the secrets of your magical cooking? I follow Meenakshi Ammal’s recipes faithfully, but yours still tastes different.”

My mother laughed heartily. “Sama doesn’t have the taste buds or nose to tell toor dal from chana dal! Often, I just stretch leftovers from the night before with a bit of water and spice. He’ll eat anything hot without protest—even if it’s slightly stale. Don’t take his opinions too seriously, dear. You’re fortunate to have a husband who isn’t picky. But mark my words, soon, he’ll be proclaiming that no one cooks like his wife. And he’ll be right. Your food is tastier than mine. Frankly, I never enjoyed cooking all that much.”

Her comments about my lack of culinary discernment left me a little deflated, but I could tell she meant it to comfort my wife. And I was genuinely pleased with the praise she lavished on Meena.

Back in Calcutta, I began to notice a change. The food Meena prepared suddenly had the familiar tang and flavour of home. When I complimented her, she beamed with quiet pride. “I’ve been following your mother’s tips exactly,” she said.

But then, one night, the truth came out. I opened the fridge to get some cool water, and there it was. The shelves were packed with vessels containing leftovers from the morning, the previous night, and even the day before that.

 

 

A lesson learnt on Mother’s Day( 654 words)

 

I was a young doctor then, fresh out of internship and full of uncertain dreams. I had just set up a modest private practice in a small, sleepy town, where life moved slowly and people lived a simple life with silent grace. My practice had barely begun to find its footing. Most days, I saw a trickle of patients—just a handful in the mornings and fewer still by evening. I had turned the front hall of my rented home into a consulting room, with a narrow space in between serving as my examination area. There were no other private practitioners nearby, just a government hospital—overburdened, under-equipped, and struggling to care for the town’s poorest

One night, as the clock struck 2 a.m., I woke up to a soft knock at my door. A young boy stood there, his face pale in the moonlight, his voice barely a whisper.

“Doctor, an old lady in the apartment next to ours… she’s very sick. My mom says it’s serious.”

I put on a coat and followed him, asking questions as we drove in my rattling jalopy. He didn’t know much—only that the old woman lived alone and his mother was with her now.

I found her inside a dimly lit room, curled up on a thin mattress, barely a shadow of a person. Her body trembled with fever, and her breathing was shallow. The neighbour, the boy’s mother, explained that she had heard groaning and found the old woman alone, vomiting, feverish, and weak.

“I have been to your clinic a few times,” she said. “Your medicines helped me get well. That’s why I thought of you.”

I examined the patient. She was dangerously dehydrated, her pulse racing. She needed immediate fluids and care. I gently told her neighbour the old woman needed to be admitted.

The sick woman’s frail voice broke the silence. “Please… let me go in peace. I have no one. There’s no one left to care if I live or die.”

The neighbour looked at me with sad eyes. “She has a son abroad. But he hasn’t visited in over a decade. She won’t take his money. She survives on a small pension. No visitors, no family. Just us, the neighbours.”

I knelt beside her. “You remind me of my mother,” I told her quietly. “I can’t let you suffer like this. Please, let me help you. This is not just duty—it’s something deeper. Let me be your son tonight.”

Her lips trembled; her eyes were glassy. She slowly nodded, and a single tear slipped down her cheek.

“You are a kind boy,” she whispered. “Just like my son should have been. Tell me, how much do I owe you for coming here… for taking me to the hospital?”

I held her hand. “You owe me nothing. Let’s talk about payment after you’re well and back home.”

I got her admitted and stayed until emergency treatment began. Then, exhausted, I returned home at dawn.

When I woke up again around 8 a.m., I rushed to the hospital with a strange tightness in my chest. The duty doctor looked at me and lowered his head.

“We did our best. She was too weak. She passed peacefully just after sunrise.”

He added, “She kept trying to tell us something… about money, maybe… something she owed you. Her voice was too faint.”

I stood silently, throat thick, heart aching.

“She was like a mother to me,” I finally said, my voice shaking. “She owed me nothing. I’ll take care of her last rites. She deserves that much. No one should leave this world alone.”

It was Mother’s Day; I didn’t have flowers readily to place by her side. But I thought of the old woman who, in her final hours, found in me the son she longed for—and gave me, without knowing, the deepest lesson in compassion, love, and quiet motherhood.

 

 

The man who quietly changed my journey (658 words)

This is a real story of my journey six decades back that started with anxiety, included a chance encounter, and ended with an unexpected act of quiet generosity.

It was one of those blazing Indian summers when the entire country seemed to be on the move. Trains were packed to the brim. Reservations were nearly impossible. Waiting lists ran into the hundreds.

In those days, there was no online booking. Everything—from ticketing to waitlists—was handled manually. If you wanted a seat, you either had influence or incredible luck. Touts thrived, often in cahoots with some corrupt officials. Travel on a specific date was, in short, a gamble.

Amidst this chaos, I had to travel urgently to Delhi on official business. Air travel was out of the question—it was far too expensive and reserved only for top-level bureaucrats. My office, after pulling a few strings, managed to get me a berth on the onward journey through the state government quota.

The return, however, was a different story. My ticket was waitlisted way down the list—far past the point of hope. Still, I left for Delhi, deciding to worry about the return later.

I was allotted a berth in a first-class coupe. No one had shown up to share the compartment as the train began to move. Just then, a middle-aged man hurriedly boarded, his porter barely managing to get his suitcase inside.

“You were about to miss the train,” I said, more amused than annoyed. “Lucky you got in by the skin of your teeth.”

He gave a faint smile. “True, I was held up in a meeting and had to rush, sir.”

He was short, bald, and spoke with a quiet deference. The “sir” hinted at someone accustomed to formal hierarchies. We didn’t talk much that night—both of us were tired and soon drifted to sleep.

The next morning, over a modest cup of train coffee, he asked if I was from the Tamil Nadu cadre. I clarified I wasn’t an IAS officer, just a middle level public sector executive.

At this, he visibly relaxed. He spoke more freely—about Chennai, about his difficulties finding North Indian food while traveling, and about the little adjustments that come with work and life away from home.

I casually mentioned the trouble I’d had getting a return ticket and showed him my waitlist—number 347. He glanced at it, nodded, and jotted something into his small notebook.

“Well,” he said with a quiet smile, “Let’s hope you’re as lucky on the return as you were on the way here.”

He didn’t offer help. He didn’t mention who he was. And I didn’t ask.

After finishing my work in Delhi, I approached our local office for help with my return ticket. Their response was predictable—holiday rush, zero availability, even the emergency quota had been rejected.

But around 4 PM, an assistant came running into my room, breathless.

“Sir! A berth has been released in your name. And…it wasn’t us. I checked. It came from the Chairman, Railway Board’s quota.”

I stood still for a moment, the pieces falling into place.

That quiet, polite man in the coupe—the one who smiled faintly, spoke gently, and never once revealed his identity—must have been someone working in the office of the Chairman, Railway Board. He didn’t say a word, didn’t promise a thing. He simply acted.

I was reminded of a Sanskrit verse I had once read:

शरदि न वर्षति गर्जति वर्षति वर्षाषु निःस्वनो मेघः |

नीचो  वदति  न कुरुते वदति न  साधुः  करोत्येव     ||

In autumn, clouds thunder but bring no rain. During the monsoon, they rain silently.

The ordinary man speaks but does not act; the noble one acts without a word.

In a world full of noise, that gentleman chose silence. In a system clogged with influence and noise, he acted quietly and effectively.

Sometimes, the greatest gestures are the ones that are never announced.

 

 

The Unexpected Awakening (471 words)

 

He chose to walk through the small forest that lay between him and his village, bypassing the long, winding road that would have taken twice the time. It was only three o’clock, and daylight still shone through the trees. The cheerful sounds of birdsong, the scampering of squirrels, and the gentle rustle of leaves made the path feel inviting. With no regrets, he stepped lightly into the tranquil woods.

An hour passed, perhaps a little more, and the forest seemed to change. The once-lively canopy grew hushed. The birds fell silent, the squirrels vanished, and even the wind that had stirred the leaves seemed to hold its breath. Twilight deepened swiftly into a shadowed gloom, and the forest stretched endlessly in all directions. A tight unease gripped his chest. He felt unable to go forward, yet too far in to turn back. Frozen in the silence, he instinctively looked up and brought his palms together in prayer. His fingers involuntarily touched a locket in his chain.

Scanning the scary surroundings, he spotted a faint glimmer of light through the trees. Pushing through tangled undergrowth, he came upon a small hut, its door shut tight. He called out—once, then again—but no answer came. He gently nudged the door open and peered inside. No one was there. A tiny lamp flickered in one corner beside a small clay pot of water. There was no sign of habitation. Just the lamp, the pot, and a sense of waiting. He sat down on the bare floor and, wearied by the day, drifted into sleep.

At dawn, the forest had transformed. Sunlight streamed through the branches, birds filled the air with music, and squirrels chased each other across the grass. He woke slowly, disoriented, trying to remember where he was. But the hut was gone. So was the lamp and the pot. The clearing itself looked untouched, as though no one had ever set foot there. It all felt like a dream, already dissolving in the light of morning. He stood in silence, the forest now radiant and full of life, yet holding a secret stillness—as if the night had whispered something he alone could hear.

A deep calm settled over him. A soft smile played across his face. He took a slow breath, letting the morning sun warm his skin. Then, with quiet confidence, he resumed his journey. The forest no longer felt unfamiliar or fearsome. It seemed to guide him gently forward. Whatever had happened—real or imagined—had stirred something within him. When he stepped into the clearing that led to the village, the bells of the distant temple rang softly through the trees.

He smiled—not because he had survived the night, but because something within him had awakened. The forest had not tested him. It had prepared him.