A Timely Act

             I was in my third grade in a convent school in Bangalore.  It was a Saturday on which we had color dress.  The Science teacher had brought a bowl of water with a small fish in it to show us the movement of fish in water.  My classmate Pradeep sitting next to me saw, all of a sudden, there was a pool between his feet and the front of his pants were wet.  As he became jittery, my attention turned towards him.  I noticed the wet pants and laughed at first.  Then I asked him, why didn't he request the teacher for permission to go out.  He thought his heart was going to stop because he could not possibly imagine how that had happened.  It had never happened before, and he knew that when the other boys find that out he will never hear the end of it.  When the girls find that out, they will never speak to him again as long as he lives.

            He was conscious and tensed; he put his head down and started praying, Oh God, this is an emergency! I need help now! Five minutes from now I will be put to shame.  A minute later, he looked up from his prayer and saw the teacher with a look in her eyes that said his act was discovered.  As the teacher was walking towards him, another classmate named Sunil was carrying the fish bowl that was filled with water. Sunil slipped in front of the teacher and curiously dumped the bowl of water on Pradeep's lap.  Pradeep pretended to be angry, but all the while was saying to himself, thank you, thank you, Lord!

            Then all of a sudden, instead of being the object of ridicule, Pradeep was the object of sympathy.  The teacher rushed him downstairs and gave him another shorts to put on while his pants dry out.  All the other classmates were on their hands and knees cleaning up around the desk.  The sympathy was wonderful.  But as life would have it, the ridicule that should have been his was transferred to someone else - Sunil.  He tried to help, but the others told him to stay away by saying you have created a mess, you clumsy!  

            Finally, at the end of the day, as we were waiting for the school bus, Pradeep walked over to Sunil and whispered, you did that on purpose, didn't you?  Sunil whispered back, I had wet my pants once too.  May we all see the opportunities that are always around us to do good and help others.