Whenever four women gather, they talk about bags, shoes, jewelry and clothes, or where so-and-so got her hair dyed, where did she get her make-up done, everyone gets excited. It was, but his talk was strange.
Perhaps her face glowed without make-up, if not, her make-up was so expertly done that she looked years younger than her age. Everyone was asking her the secret of her beautiful skin and she was laughing and jokingly saying something to someone.
“There is no such thing as makeup on my face,” she finally said, “Check it out if you want.” If anyone has wet tissue paper in their purse, or if you want, try a make-up remover lotion.
“Oh no no…” said one of them in a flattering tone. “No one doubts, just tell me the secret of your beauty?”
“I drink fresh juice of seasonal fruits every day.”… “We all drink them too, thank God that we all can afford it, eat fruits and drink juices too.” said in reply.
“I drink the juice of these fruits, which we don’t buy from the carts,” she said, “I explain.” “A man was standing on the side of the road with a cart. I thought that there is not so much population. He is standing at the wrong place. will He had three or four varieties of wells. I said, I will take the fruit of my choice. He had no objection, it is possible that he would have told ten or twenty rupees more.
I picked the ones I wanted and separated the ones that were a little soft, he kept saying they weren’t bad but just a little pressed, it didn’t make any difference to their taste.
However, I told him to be quiet, he kept pouring these wells into an empty crate on the floor. “What will you do with these wells, will you sell them to someone with juice?” I asked him.
“Juice people buy rotten and stale fruits and that too at the cost of lepers. I keep this so that when a poor customer comes, I give it to him at cheap prices, even his children can taste the seasonal fruits. A somewhat elderly cyclist stopped by his carriage and inquired about the wells.
He told her the same rate that he told me. He became silent for a while and then asked if someone could show him what is cheaper than him. I had put over a dozen wells in my envelope, she showed the cyclist the wells that were in the crate where he was also putting my discarded wells. With a slight frown, he said, “Put a dozen wells.”
I told him, “Give the good ones to the poor and I will pay you for them, and give me the lighter ones.” You will buy good ones tomorrow and give the same at low prices. Whenever he passes by and stops to buy soft fruits from him, he also prays, saying that Allah has blessed his business so much.
I have done this deal not only with this one wheeler, but with many other fruit and vegetable sellers, somewhere I have contributed goodness to the flour mill. Many have established the Turkish tradition of a basket of goodness for oven-baked bread, but goodness can go beyond the bread itself… that’s the secret.
