Help

No, this is not because I need help. This is because I have, finally, grasped a teensy bit of the meaning of this wonderful gesture.
It’s amazing to see how you can learn the biggest of things from the smallest of experiences in life, when you never even thought you had the opportunity to learn something. This is dedicated to a friend, who gave me this opportunity to learn what help means. Maybe I am making a mountain of a mole hill, because I have been a child kept in the “high-security” of my family, still… I am thankful to her.
It’s 9 in the morning; I wake up, angry to see the time and cursing myself for bunking so many classes in life, brush and start sipping tea when I see my friend X, with her notes and books. She sits beside me and I answer some of the questions she is asking herself to revise what she has mugged (me: puff up with pride). Then comes the googly – What! We have this chapter too! (I discover I need to mug one more chapter) Please let me have a look at your notes, please please… (I am totally devastated, as if) I follow her to her room and sit beside her while she tells me what exactly to read, and provides me with her “underlined” stuff and imp notes to read from. I am happy (wah!) and start mugging asap… At about 11, “Hey X… I just got up… Was ***** yesterday. Please, please explain this chapter to me, I can’t really…” Before I can figure out which chapter is being talked about, my friend X is in her room, patiently explaining the intricacies of what so-n-so person has to say about so-n-so things. In 30 mins., she arrives – “Ah, I need to finish off fast, thank god, she understood so fast, so well.” – Not a complain, not a curse, no expression of sadness, anger or helpess-ness… In fact, appreciation for having grasped so well and so fast!! She completed her chapters (asking me from time to time whether I needed more stuff to read from) and we went for lunch together.
This friend, with whom I have never spent so much time before, seemed to have made my day. Isn’t this what true help is? Isn’t this what you want when you have messed up half a dozen things in life and yet have to complete this so important task? My friend’s caring glance seemed to me, like my Mom’s – always soothing… Her help to my other friend, leaving out her own time, was exemplary. Her sitting next to me brought up all the experiences of my life where I have been neglected help, a loving hand, a caring word for the simple reason that I always topped the exams, made it to the school sports teams, won the music competitions… My friend had nothing against all this… She didn’t care if my CPI was so good, she didn’t care if I was bunking classes and working for something else, she didn’t care whether I would be able to help her later on (being in different departments, we would probably never share any other course). All she cared was that my plea was answered. That she had done her best to help me.
I salute her. For helping me of course, but more so, for helping me learn how to help.