83. A Guest A Day!

I met Muthuswamy in the office of my friend Rajan, at Erode, when I went to that town in connection with my official business.

Rajan was the Branch Manager of a bank at Erode. When I was sitting in his cabin, Muthuswamy, a small businessman and a customer of the bank came to see him

Rajan introduced me to Muthuswamy as his friend working at Chennai, who had come to Erode on official work. 

After we both had greeted each other, Muthuswamy asked me where I was staying.

I told him that I was staying in a hotel.  

Muthuswamy aske me, "Why don't you come to my house for lunch today?"

I was surprised at the invitation for lunch from a person whom I had met just a few minutes back. I was naturally reluctant to accept the invitation for lunch from a stranger.

"Thank you, sir. I will come to your house some other time, not today!" I said, politely.

"Accept his invitation and go. You need to be acquainted with this gentleman" said Rajan.

"Sir, since your wife is not home, you can also join your friend" said Muthuswamy, turning to Rajan.

"Thank you, sir, but I have some important work at the office. My friend will come" said Rajan.

I again tried to politely decline Muthuswamy's invitation.

"Hey! For the past several years, Mr. Muthuswamy has been following a practice of inviting one guest everyday to his house for lunch. In fact, he has taken a vow that if he can't get a guest on a particular day, he won't take lunch on that day. But, amazingly, there has not been a single day when he couldn't get a guest. Am I right, sir?" asked Rajan.

Muthuswamy nodded his head in agreement.

"It's a good practice. But, will it not be better, if you feed some poor person every day? Why should you invite well-to-do people like me?" I asked.

"Sir! What I do is not poor feeding. My objective is to share my lunch with another person. That's all" said Muthuswamy.

"I still feel that you can share your lunch with a needy person!" I said.

"Don't judge him by your standards. As Mr. Muthuswamy has clarified, his objective is not to feed the poor, but to share the food with someone" Rajan chided me in a friendlyway.

"Sir, I am not a well-educated person. I have been following the practice of sharing my meal with one person every day. Feeding the poor will be a noble act, no doubt. But, how do I pick a poor person from among the people living in this town? Moreover, feeding the poor has to be done at a large scale. Feeding one person won't make any difference. Being an individual with limited means, I don't have the resources to feed several people. There is also one more angle to this. If I feed a poor person, I will be doing a favour to him. But if a person like you accepts my hospitality, it is a favour you will be doing to me!" explained Muthuswamy.

"How can it be?" I asked, perplexed by his logic.

"You can choose to go to a high class restaurant and eat the food of your choice. But, when you accept my invitation and lunch at my house, you choose to share the simple food served at my home. Is this not a favour to me, if not an honour?"

I went to Muthuswamy's house and had lunch with him. As told by him, the food was simple. After all, his policy was to share the food he eats regularly with someone.

"Don't you find it difficult to get a guest every day" I asked.

"Yes, it has ben a difficult task. But I have been able to find someone every day, till now. Today, when I went to the bank, I couldn't have expected that I would meet you there!" said Muthuswamy.

"People like me find it difficult to manage even the guests we receive occasionally. But you have been seeking out a guest everyday and offering food to him. Hats off to you!" I said with genuine admiration.

After a couple of years, when I met Rajan at Chennai, I asked him about Muthuswamy.

"Is he still continuing his mission?" I asked.

"Mission is the most appropriate word to describe what he practices, though you might have used this word mockingly" said Rajan.

"I didn't" I protested.

Rajan continued, as if not taking note of my protest. "As you know, last year, there was a recession in the textile industry and many people in the textile business faced financial strain, Many small traders, unable to face the falling revenue and mounting losses, were thrown out of their businesses. Some of them were forced to take up employment for survival."

"What about Muthuswamy?"

"Muthuswamy was among the few who survived the recession. He went through a difficult period alright, but he was able to hold. Even during that time, he did not give up his practice of sharing his meal with one guest every day."

"How did he manage to do so?" I asked, feeling astonished.

"When I posed this question to him, he said, 'Sir, there are four of us in our household. Even during the difficult times, we didn't have to miss a single meal, for want of money. If there were five members in our family, we would be managing to have our meal every day, won't we be? I just have to consider the guest as the fifth member of my family. That is all it takes!' Now, things have turned for the better in his business. His finances have begun to look up."

"When a person has a mission to feed one guest every day, he will never face the problem of food in his life" I said.

Though I said this as a wish from me, I strongly believed that it would be true.

Thirukkural
Section 1
The Path of Virtue

Chapter 9
Hospitality

Verse 83 (In Tamil)

varuvirundhu vaigalum OmbuvAn vAzhkkai
paruvandhu pAzhpadudhal inRu.

Meaning:

The life of a person, who makes it a practice to show hospitality to guests every day, will never be rocked by poverty.

(This is the English version of the Tamil story 'dhinamum oru virundhinar' by the same author)

Verse 84
Verse 82