The Angry Shopkeeper

Keshav Mukherjee was having an extremely frustrating day. He had forgotten his glasses at home and gone to work. He had forgotten to lay his wares out the previous night. He had not remembered to tell his wife to make aloo parathas for breakfast (he was extremely fond of them). He had messed up and misplaced his belongings numerous times and felt perfectly awful.

On the whole, he was feeling downcast and unusually irritable. "Bhai, how much is this lungi for?" Asked a passerby to Keshav Mukherjee. Annoyed that he had been interrupted from his daydream, Keshav looked up at the customer. "Forty rupees", he replied in his gruff voice. "How about twenty five?" Bargained the customer. This was a usual haggle, and Keshav was used to it.

However, he was not as patient and cheerful about it today, as he usually was. "Fine then!", he roared at the customer. "Take it and get out of here!". People passing by stopped and stared. They had never seen such a commotion occur before in the quiet and serene village of Sultanpur. Ladies stopped to whisper behind their hands. Men flexed their muscles to show that they could participate if needed.

Almost the whole village of Sultanpur gathered around Keshav's daily needs shop 'Har Din ka Sapna'. " GET LOST I SAY!", he screamed at the crowd. Suddenly, a baby started crying and the crowd slowly dispersed. The customer also flung the money down and rushed away, lungi in mid-air. Breathing heavily, Keshav packed up his wares and left the marketplace.

"Was that you screaming?". Asked his wife timidly. "Hmph", he snorted, "What's for dinner?", he asked. "But dear, you have to give me the money to buy the vegetables for dinner.", said his wife. Keshav fished into his pocket and brought out the twenty five rupees that he had earned that day. It was not enough to buy even the flour for their daily bread. "Well never mind dear", said his kind hearted wife. "I shall check if there is some money in my purse."

Keshav felt terrible as he watched his wife take out her own hard earned money from her purse. He knew how much she liked to spend it on dresses and bangles for their daughters, Malika and Meena. That night, when the family sat down to dinner, Malika piped up, "Ma, papa, why are we just having dry roti and sabji? Ma promised that we could have samosas, parathas, and lots more.

Keshav opened his mouth, to tell his wife off for making empty promises to the kids, but stopped himself in the nick of time. After all, it was him who had promised his daughters to bring home lots of dolls for them from the market. Thank goodness they had forgotten about that. Just as all these swam in his head, Malika suddenly said, "Papa, you had promised to bring us lots of dolls today!"

"Children, don't trouble your father so, he has had a hard day at work. Now if you finish your food quickly, I shall read you a bedtime story." Said Ranjani(his wife). Meena and Malika cleared their plates, and went after their mother. Keshav too, went to bed. The next day dawned bright and beautiful. Keshav woke up in a good mood, amd set off for work. He reached the market and laid out his wares.

But, alas! No matter how bright and welcoming his wares were, no one was interested in them. This was extremely strange, as everyday at least a couple of customers would check out his wares during the morning time. Keshav sat down and pondered over this. He had flared up yesterday, and so the result was that nobody had anything to do with him. He knew that he had not meant to do anything serious, but he had no way to explain this to anyone.

Just then, a beggar in rags came up to him. Keshav did not usually entertain beggars, but he scrutinized this one carefully. He seemed genuine. "Bhaisab, may I have this toy train? My son has been worrying me for one for a long time. I am not able to afford one for him. How much is it for?" "Eighty rupees", replied Keshav. The beggar extended his hand it was full of coins worth fifteen rupees.

Keshav handed him the toy but did not take any money. "You need it more than I do", he said to the beggar. "And take an extra twenty rupees from me. It will be needed." A passerby heard this conversation, and hastened off to tell it to his wife. His wife in turn, gossiped about it to her friends and soon, the whole village of Sultanpur knew what had happened. Soon everyone started coming to his shop once more. They realised that under this fierce personality, lay a warm and truthful heart.