Mighty Deed

She watched the rain drops race by on the window of her car. She was exactly at the same place where she was a year before, from where she had started it all.She was standing in front of Abhaya Anathaashram and it started to rain as soon as she pulled in.

She had quit her job a year ago, her flourishing career, a result of 3 years of hard-work. Her bank balance was depleting. She had come a long way and there was no turning back now.

She wanted to start an NGO of her own like Abhaya. She thought getting her NGO registered would be the toughest task. But, she was wrong. She had done everything from bringing in like-minded people to form a governing body for the NGO to getting it registered. But, the biggest task in front of her now, was raising funds for her NGO.

She left no stone unturned. Yet she had lost. There weren't many people or private organizations to help her. She didn't blame them, given the scams that they get to hear everyday. The least that she could manage was to rope in a few Corporate Organizations to fund, but that wasn't enough.

She still remembered her first day as a tutor at Abhaya. She saw a bunch of kids with curious eyes judging and assessing her. Over a lot of ice-creams and stories, she had earned a piece of their unconditional love. It seemed all so easy back then. She thought to herself "HOW can it be so difficult? I am doing a good thing here. How?"

Her thoughts were broken by a knock on her window. She wiped the film of vapor on the window from her hand to see who it was. It was Raaji, her favorite kid of the lot, with an umbrella. Raaji was studying in 10th and wanted to become a dancer. She instantly opened the door of the car to hear Raaji say "Akka, You should have called up. I would have got an umbrella".
Raaji took her arm and led her into the house not waiting for her to answer.

The house was upbeat with inane laughter as always. She wondered how the kids managed to stay so cheerful every single day. Raaji went in to get a cup of tea for her. She sat down wiping her hands from a towel. She heard Darshan saying "I want to become a Doctor you know, the one that takes care of dogs. I'll prepare some kind of lotion for people so that when the dog bites with it's canine teeth, it wont hurt people."
She thought if she would ever be able to help the kids to hold on to their innocence against all the things that were trying to steal it from them. Because she had lost her's, over the years.

Her train of thoughts was broken again when she saw a mailman at the door-step. It was a courier, addressed to her. She was pleasantly surprised looking at the From Address. She opened the letter and started to read in a hurry.

The last few words shook her balance, literally. The letter said "As a token of appreciation and thankyou for your support, we want to help you in return." In the envelope was a cheque for one lakh rupees addressed to her NGO, Samarthya.

It was a letter from an NGO, to which she was sending money from her salary, 500 rupees every month from the past 3 years.

But she couldn't understand why would they want to help her. She looked up from the letter to find Raaji with a cup of tea.

Raaji said with a chuckle, "I wrote them a little letter you know, about your situation."
She smiled and went on to say "Your lessons came in handy."

She felt a choke in her throat and eyes moisten up.