It was a hot afternoon that summer on the hills of the Vindhyas.
The Gurjar household was in upheaval.
Someone said something to someone, and someone did not like it.
It triggered an argument which suddenly roared into a storm of words.
Like a hurricane, one by one, it sucked in everyone.
The elders were shouting and emptying their long-held grudges.
The young adults took sides and got dragged in too.
It was chaos, mayhem and overall breakdown in the family of 12.
The eldest in the household - Ramadevi - 89 years old - remained silent through it all.
As the sun set, cooler winds graced the verandah. The tensions that simmered now had settled.
There was silence as hearts and doors were now shut. Some cried silently sitting at the window, some gently rocked to sleep.
The kids in the household - Bhavya, Suniti and Gopi - tiptoed to the room where their great grandmother Ramadevi was silently weaving.
She gestured them to come in and they gently walked in and sat by her.
Youngest of them all, the 10-year-old Bhavya hugged Ramadevi as teardrops wet her chubby cheeks. Suniti and Gopi all of 12 were in a dull mood too.
Ramadevi gauged what was running in the minds of her great grand kids and knew it was time to share some wisdom.
But, what will she tell them? She pondered and realized that these kids must pick the right lessons. It was her duty to tell them, else their little minds would conceive wrong notions.
She looked somberly at the needle she was using. Then she glanced at the kids.
“The needle has a pointy end to poke - to poke a thread to weave one into another.
Yet, many times, we poke the pointy end into our fingers.
It is not the needle’s fault that it pokes, it is our ability to use it that falls short.
Same is the case with our words. Do you use them to help or hurt others?
Ramadevi hoped the analogy had touched a nerve in those little kids. All the kids hugged her tightly. She kissed their foreheads one by one and sent them to play.
She wondered if her words had put in a stitch that would keep her family together.
She looked upwards to pray and then got back to her stitching.
Inspiring lesson, A Needle can either mend or harm, depending on how we use it 👍🏽