Collecting one pebble at a time...

An old man, about the age of sixty is travelling from the US back to India. He was visiting his daughter there.
In the flight, he sees a group of American teenagers. He must have wondered what they were doing on a flight to India. After some time into the flight, one girl from the group hands him a Tamil pamphlet and asks him to translate. He is more intrigued. He does the translation work and then asks her back a question. How did she get a Tamil pamphlet and what was going on?

This was the time the tsunami had struck the coastal regions of South India. These teenagers were travelling to do volunteer work. Their funding? A church had sponsored their flight tickets. YMCA/YWCA had arranged for their stay. They did not have a way for food at the destination cities - Chennai and Cuddalore. They did have some funding which was to be used for buying food and clothes for people affected. Obviously, if they did not have a way for food, some of this funding would be used for that purpose.

The people had a plan of buying jeans for the affected folks. Of course, they only knew so much about the destination place. The old man suggests not to buy jeans. Instead, he asks to custom stitch clothes by arranging for a tailor as it would be more apt and cheaper as well. By fate or chance, he is pulled into the situation and seeing a group of students, who were in no way obligated to help but were travelling to volunteer, decides to get his hands dirty as well.

After reaching his home in Chennai, he visits the house of the owner of Saravana Bhavan chain of hotels (the owner stays near his house). How he managed an appointment is beyond me! He explains how these students were here for volunteering for the tsunami relief work. He also mentions they were staying here for forty five days. The owner agrees to provide food for them for all the days. Only one condition - he wants them to sign the receipt for the cost so he can get a tax exemption. He asks them to pick up the food from any hotel that was close to where they stayed. After their work is done after the forty five days, he also meets them and takes a group photograph with them.

The old man then travels to Cuddalore and meets up with a tailor. He enlists his help to stitch custom clothes for affected people. The group uses their money to buy raw materials and supply to the tailor. [I think the tailor may have waived stitching charges - I am not 100% sure]. The old man also visits Adyar bakery and explains the situation to them. They agree to ship bread free of cost to the destination location and charge only for the bread.

So these forty five days pass. Then on the last day, one girl mentions - "Before I came here, I had a different opinion about India and Indians. You won't want to know what it is."

The old man says - "I am happy it is changed now - that is what really matters."

A black boy in the group says - "There is no person we can find in USA who would feed a group of folks for forty five days free of cost. Seriously!"

The old man drops them at the airport. The group counts the amount of money they have in hand. It all totals to about 25 USD. Apparently they had spent everything else for this work. The convert this amount as well to Indian rupees and hand it over to the old man and ask him to donate it for the cause. This act completely breaks down the old man and he is moved to tears.

Big things in life happen not by magnificent people doing magnificent things. It happens when simple people do simple things with love and care. The conglomerate of these simple things assumes magnificent proportions. Only, most of us neglect the simple things precisely because they are simple and appear to mount to nothing.

Note: I had the opportunity of meeting this old man [by fate or chance] and he narrated this episode then.

Update - 24th May 2010:
Missed to state something important. Lufthansa allowed unlimited check in luggage for the students.