On a fog-draped winter morning, when the cold clung to the skin like an uninvited guest, I set out with a small intention—to offer warm milk to the street dogs of our colony. The air was sharp, the silence thick, broken only by the hiss of boiling water at the neighbourhood tea stall. I asked the chaiwala to heat some milk, imagining the comfort it would bring to those shivering souls curled up on concrete pavements.
As I waited, a woman stepped into the stall. Her clothes were torn and weary, stitched together by survival rather than thread. In her hand was only a rupee five coin—just enough to buy a small packet of Kurkure, perhaps to quiet the hunger of a waiting child. Hunger has a way of humbling pride, and poverty has a way of making even the smallest choices painfully significant.
Moved by an instinct deeper than thought, I asked her gently,
“Would you like a cup of tea?”
She looked at me, not with refusal, but with resignation.
“I don’t have ten rupees.”
Her words landed heavier than the winter fog. In that moment, the true cost of a cup of tea revealed itself—not in currency, but in circumstance. The cold suddenly felt different. Less physical. More human.
I stood there, struck by gratitude. Gratitude for the quiet privileges we often overlook—the ability to warm our hands, fulfil our needs, and offer kindness without calculation. As Anne Frank once wrote,
“No one has ever become poor by giving.”
I quickly asked the shopkeeper to serve her a cup of tea and a packet of biscuits. It was a small gesture, almost invisible against the vastness of her struggle, but for a moment, warmth replaced the cruelty of the wind. The steam rising from that cup felt like hope—brief, fragile, but real.
In North India’s unforgiving cold waves, the poor wear resilience like a second skin. Their clothes, riddled with holes, barely shield them from the biting air. Yet they rise each day, labouring relentlessly for two meagre meals. The cold seeps through fabric and bone alike, turning survival into an act of courage. As the Dalai Lama reminds us, “Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.”
Compassion, especially from a stranger, can ripple outward in unseen ways. Oprah Winfrey once said,
“A stranger’s compassion can make a world of difference.” Indeed, a single act of kindness can soften even the coldest corners of existence, reminding the weary that the world has not entirely turned its back on them.
Later, with the intention of offering her a proper meal, I returned—but she was gone. Like mist dissolving into daylight, she vanished from the familiar backdrop of my routine. I kept returning to that spot while tending to the four-legged residents of the street, but she never appeared again. Her absence lingered, mysterious and quietly haunting.
Years have passed since that winter morning. Yet whenever the fog thickens and the cold sharpens, my thoughts drift back to her—her hardship, her dignity, her quiet endurance. I whisper a prayer for her, wherever she may be.
Because compassion, as Rumi so beautifully said, “is the bridge between you and everything.”
And sometimes, that bridge is nothing more than a humble cup of tea in the cold.
Pic : Pixabay
