A reward of ultimate contentment!

That was a little effort, which succeeded in bringing smiles on the faces of those little kids. I know, they were the smiles of absolute contentment.

As part of my follow up of Dasara preparations, I was in Mysore yesterday.  After a host of meetings, it was around three in the afternoon, we went to Chamundi hills to oversee the plans afoot. In the midst of the discussions with Officers, I happened to see a bunch of School children with their teachers wearily looking at us. 200 children, all of them had come to Mysore from different government schools of Turuvekere taluk of Tumkur district as part of their “CHINNARA PRAVASA” an annual program, every school follows as part of its curriculum. Although, there was an excitement on those little faces, I somehow felt the smiles were incomplete. In fact, the teachers and those children had even a photo snap session with me. I spoke to some of them, and tried to know the reason for those incomplete smiles.  It was only when I insisted, I came to know, that these kids were starving for food for quite some time as already the DASOHA timings were ended. DASOHA is a daily ritual organized by the temple authorities for all and sundry who visit the place. The teachers had a plan to reach the place early, take darshan of deity as soon as possible and get food for their students there itself. All their plans had taken for a toss as they had come little late. As many as 200 poor children, they could not afford hotels too. And the result, children were left high and dry! The scene of those starving hapless kids and helpless teachers was heartrending.  Stirred, I called up the temple authorities and instructed that these children had to be taken care of immediately.

Half an hour, the children were sitting before the plates relishing the much needed food.  I went up to them curiously to just see if the smiles were back on their faces. Glittering, yes few of them were so excited; they reached up to me and said "thank you" in their own innocent ways. The contentment on those innocent faces was really relieving for me and left me in high spirits for the rest of the day.

These kinds of incidents are all the more rewarding more than any other things!