Last week, the festival of Pongal was being celebrated in South India.
On one particular day of the festival, families are supposed to have a fun day out - it is the tradition. Nowadays, it is mostly those who are not all that wealthy and can't afford to go out every weekend who follow this tradition. So on this day there will be crowds from even remote rural areas, including people who live in real poverty, on beaches, in movie theatres, parks and zoos in the cities.
On this day, in the morning I spotted the vegetable vendor wheeling eight happy kids who were blowing balloons and having a lot of fun to the park. I mentioned this casually in the evening to someone else. He said that he had seen them too, and in fact had spent some time in the morning praying that it wouldn't rain. He had seen dark clouds in the morning and didn't want the children to have their fun spoilt.
I know this sounds like something small but I don't know too many people who would care about unknown people in the same way.
It finally never rained and I saw the children being wheeled back, tired and happy.
