Mammoth service.

`I flicked through the latest copy of readers digest to read my favourite regulars. I was pleasantly surprised to see the dignified face of a familiar middle aged flower seller smiling at me.

On the eve of May day , she figured in a write up on labourers.

In the evening I visited the temple. I walked a few paces from the entrance to buy flowers from that seller. I congratulated her on her international fame. She was bewildered and as I explained on, she acknowledged her sudden global recognition by bowing humbly in the direction of the deity.

With a twinge of sadness, she recounted her arduous journey in life . She was orphaned young , and was married off to a penniless leper by her relatives and she begged on the streets along with him . Then she switched over to selling flowers ,and her husband died soon after,leaving her issueless.She adopted as her own 3 children she found abandoned on the streets.

She has built a brisk business , primarily I guess due to her knack of talking soothingly and kindly to every one of her customers, old and new.She would often sell a length of braided jasmine at a higher price, than of those selling them near my house, citing excuses that it was a Friday or as it was some festival or the other the next day the price of flowers had shot up in the wholesale market !On several occasions I got to know about the impending festivals, from her!

Though always wrested worse in the bargaining bouts I could never get myself to buy flowers from several other sellers clamouring for my attention nearby.

She continued relating her story. She had sent these children to school and two of them were now studying in nursing and engineering college! That she had to pay Rs 35,000 and Rs4o,000[ phew] respectively as fees this year ,plus provide them with clothing and books and also pay her house rent of Rs2000 per month as well as pay for her food purchased from outside as also for her daily dose of medicines, a boxful! A ll these expenses are met by selling a basket of flowers! Rain or shine ,each and every day of her life.I doubt whether she has stashed away any sum for herself for her old age.

Now I know why I never had the heart to switch her for another and am glad I didn't . I was in a way , contributing my mite to her mammoth service.

She requested a copy of the magazine so that her son may read about her . I promised to give her the magazine in my next trip to the temple.