A Beautiful Heart

My father is very outgoing person and mingles with people very easily. I always feel that I should learn a lot from him in this aspect.

My father teaches poor children of our neighborhood. One day I saw a new face along with other children. He might be of 6-7 years old. He sat with a dull expression, showing no interests for studies.

Later my father told me about him. He is from very poor family. His parents do construction work with no educational background and naturally they want their son to study and settle well in life. But this guy doesn’t want to go to school. He is known as very stubborn and bad boy. He collects garbage and waste iron pieces and sells them. He spends that money on his own and obviously he finds it very enjoyable at his age. I was really surprised. How could a guy of 7 years old think only of earning and spending money?

My father tried to convince to go to school. According to my father, even some of neighbors tried with no success. He simply ignored all. One day my father was teaching him numbers forcibly. Beside him there was one small girl sitting. This time I tried to make him go to school. Our conversation went on like this.

Me: What is your name?
He: Hemanth.
Me: Why don’t you go to school? You can have good friends in school.
He: I already have.
Me: You can earn money and live happily
He: I am already earning
Me: You can earn more than that.
He: I don’t want

Our conversation went on like this with my “possibilities’ and his “turndowns”. Feeling tired with this, I started asking about the small girl.

Me: Who is she?
He: My younger Sister
Me: Do you like her?
He: Yes
Me: do you want to take good care of her after you grow up?
He: Yes
Me: How can you do it with out studies or job?

He kept silent. He might be thinking of Telugu heroes who do it right from their childhood without even going to school.

Me: study well. You’ll get a good job. Then you can look after your sister.

Still He was silent. Finally I gave up for then. Might be he is too young to understand what I am trying to tell him.

Days went by. Hemanth stopped coming to our home. I asked my father about him. My father said that he was going to school happily. Even though we don’t want to admit, appearances and behaviors can deceive and everybody is good in their own way, very tender and sensitive inside.