My hero is Mr Krishnan from India who touched my heart one day in 2004 when I was a JC student. I was on my way to school and left my wallet on the LRT bench. When I alighted from the MRT, I realized to my horror my wallet was missing. I went to the MRT control station to inform them of my loss but at the end of the day there was still no news. My heart sank. My rosary, my cash, library and EZ link cards and money for eating, textbook and travelling expenses were all inside. My wallet was a birthday gift from my parents. They were as good as gone forever.
Back home, I already had arranged for a new wallet and was in the process of reapplying for lost cards. I prayed and hoped against hope that a kind Samaritan would return my valuables. However, I was disillusioned that such a kind soul exists in Singapore and decided to snap out of this wishful thinking.
My prayers were answered and there was a knock at my door at 8 p.m. It was a tall Indian man in work clothes. He identified himself as Mr Krishnan. He seemed to have rushed from work. He returned my wallet and asked me to check the valuables inside. He found my wallet on his way to work and held on to it. He told me that he could not find any hand phone number inside, but I had written the address so he promptly returned it to me after work right at my doorstep. I thanked him profusely as his action warmed the cockles of my heart. He refused to accept any token of thanks or be photographed as he was camera-shy. That he bothered to come after work personally to my doorstep showed his sincerity.
He told me that he was a foreigner here on a work permit staying with his fellow workers in a rented flat. He knew how important my cards, rosary and money meant to me, a student, as he himself came from an impoverished background with a family to feed back in India as he was the sole breadwinner of a family of five including his aged mother. He came from a humble working-class background yet the honesty in him is indeed a shining light, a beacon in the darkness of greed and evil in today’s materialistic world.
A year later, careless me left my wallet on my school bench. It was returned to my school office but all the money inside it was gone. I felt dismayed, and subconsciously compared the dishonesty of the pickpocket with Mr Krishna, my hero. I was a schoolmate, yet the pickpocket still stole my money, and I wasn’t even related to Mr Krishnan in any way and was not even from his hometown. Yet he kindly helped me retrieve my wallet with valuables intact and returned it at my doorstep. This shows that true kindness lights up from within like a spark, and it is a flame that ignites, showing us that true compassion exists in the heart of Man, but whether Man wishes to exercise compassion is truly up to his or her conscience.
Mr Krishnan, I salute you as you’re my hero. That is why till today, I feel very angered that Singaporeans treat foreign workers shabbily and call them names or avoid them like plague. If they hear my story they’d know that they’re human too, and can even have a kinder heart than any of us.
595 words