I met a Purse

Suhan was returning from his college on a wintry afternoon, when he found a purse lying on the footpath. "It must have slipped out from someone's pocket",he thought. Initially he hesitated to pick but after sometime he picked it and found Two Notes of Hundred Rupees in it. "Only 200Rupees in a Purse lying on a busy Calcutta street? The owner must have been a begger." his lips spelled out.

The purse was lying on the footpath just outside Suhan's house's gate. His father is the Mayor of this town. Suhan acts decent, but is a spoiled brat. Before entering home, he buys a bottle of Vodka from a nearby Liquor shop with a One Hundred Rupees note from that purse. Suhan spends all his pocket money on gambling and addictive drinks. He finished the drink and was about to enter his gate, when he found an older man standing outside of it.

"Babu, have u seen an old black purse lying somewhere on the road?" the man begged. He was wearing a torn blazer over a discolored shirt. Suhan realizes that the man is very poor and he had really done a great mistake by misusing his purse. He was still holding the purse on his Left hand which he quickly manages to hide behind his backpack. "No, why? is your purse Lost?" he enquires. "Oh Yes Babu, I am a Rickshaw driver and I had income of my last three months in it", he replied staring down at the footpath. Suhan was finding words to escape the situation, when the poor man insisted "my house is very near, maybe you could follow to help me find my purse along the way?".

"Sure".

The poor man takes Suhan to a poor old slum. Stepping over dirts and garbages all throughout the street, they finally reach the poor man's house.

"The roof of the house is broken" Suhan points out. The poor man smiles, but doesn't reply. "Come inside, Babu". Suhan enters a small bedroom with a mattress laid over Four benches aligned parallelly. That appears to be his Bed. Suhan sits on it and looks around the room. The windows are broken and cold winds must be entering their room tremendously at the nights. The poor man brings Suhan a glass of water. "Oh I needed this the most, I am very thirsty now", Suhan says.

"Just like u needed water, I needed my money too, to repair the crack on my roof and to somehow mend these broken windows. Wintry nights are very painful with torn blankets. I wish to find my purse again someday on the footpath. It must not get lost. I'll search for it Ten more days, I'll definitely find it", the man smiles with tears dropping from his eyes. Suhan feels uncomfortable and begins to sweat even it is now Winter. He feels ashamed of himself and a sense of guilt rushes in his spine.

"I must makeup for this somehow" he decides.

"Do you have a washroom, Uncle?"

"Will u take your backpack into the washroom too?" the poor man asks looking confused. Suhan doesn't reply and takes out all the money he had in his backpack after locking the washroom's door. he puts Three notes of Five hundred rupees into the purse still having a hundred Rupees. "The poor man needs these money for a better and immediate purpose than myself", realized Suhan's consciousness.

"Your house is small but beautiful", Suhan reminds the man while stepping out of his home. The man laughs and turned towards his house to explain how many years of efforts took him to build this house all by himself.

Suhan utilizes this scope to quickly drop the purse on a bush nearby silently.

"It began when i started aligning these heavy bricks some Thirty years ago...Hey, Heyyyy, isn't that my purse lying on that bush? Looook."

Suhan looks at the bush and acts as if he doesn't know anything. The poor man picks up the Purse and looks at Suhan.

"I finally found it my friend, I'm so happy."

And he really was happy, tears of joy rolled out of his eyes.

He hugs Suhan in excitement.

Suhan finally heads towards his house, imagining how surprised and happy the poor man would be, when he would find an unexpected amount in his purse to address all his emergencies and survive this winter peacefully.

Purses tell stories.