Stories of Kindness from Around the World

This story started many years ago, when I was in the 5th standard at primary school.

I was at a girls' school and our teacher made all the girls in the class sit next to someone different everyday. It was great when you got to sit next to one of your dear friends, but very boring when you had to sit next to someone you didn’t like. I hated sitting next to Madhuri. I didn’t like her because she always fought with me.
 
On one of the days that my teacher had paired Madhuri and me to sit next to each other for the day, I noticed that she seemed very anxious. I asked her what was wrong. She wasn’t very forth coming to start with, but eventually, after for a long time she told me that she had two sisters and one younger brother in her family and that her father couldn’t afford to buy school books for all of them.
 
My primary school was strict, as was the norm then, and if you didn’t have your school books the teacher would make you to leave the class. Madhuri was very anxious that day because she worried that the teacher would tell her to leave the class. When the teacher saw that she didn’t have the books, she told Madhuri that she couldn’t attend class for a week.
 
Madhuri was very upset. I felt so bad when I saw her pain that I decided to help her. I went to speak to her and offered to buy the books for her. She refused my offer to help. She had very strong principles.
 
When I got home from school I told my mom the story. She said that it was good that I had tried to help but I should stop worrying about it because there was nothing more that I could do if she had refused my offer to help. I couldn’t stop worrying about it though.
 
Then I had an idea. I emptied out my piggy bank and went to the bookshop and bought the books for her. Then I scribbled inside them so that they wouldn’t look new anymore. I knew that Madhuri wouldn’t accept them from me so I gave them to another friend, Bijal, to give to her.  Madhuri thought that Bijal had some extra old books and gratefully accepted them from her. I could see from her face how happy she was.
 
The next day, she came up to me in the class and showed me the books. She said that Bijal had some old books from a friend and now the teacher wouldn’t ask her to leave the class again. She was smiling again.

From that day, something changed and as the day passed and the years moved on Madhuri and I became best friends. I see her all the time, but even now, she has no idea that I bought the books for her.