A while ago a very fascinating story with a picture as visual evidence caught my eye on the Internet. It was about a banana shop along the road near a farm somewhere in Australia. The man who shared the story was probably a Pakistani who was awe-inspired by a small roadside shop with bananas and a scale along with the price list but no human shop assistant in sight. He was totally amazed by the trust exhibited by the shop owner and the honesty of the customers who weighed the fruit, put the money in a box and drove off without anyone or even a camera watching how much they took and whether they paid or not. Well, the story was indeed a striking contrast to the trade practices in most places.
After several weeks and perhaps months, I came across another startling story on the same social media site shared by someone from Lahore, Pakistan. This time it was a fruit and vegetable shop which reportedly remained open at night when the shopkeeper had gone home. People in his surroundings could take anything they needed, write it down in the sales book, and pay him later when he was there.
The young man who posted the story even recorded a video with the help of a friend after some people showed their reluctance to believe that this kind of phenomenon was actually possible in the city. The two young men inspected the entire shop for any cameras which might have been installed to check how people behaved. They found none. Following that, they weighed vegetables and fruit on the scale, noted it in the small notebook and left.
The next day, they asked the shopkeeper why he had decided to keep his shop open at night. He replied that he did not want people to experience inconvenience at any given time. His brothers even warned him of the possibility of loss if people took commodities and did not pay, but the man said he trusted his faith in God and knowing his intentions to help people, He would not inflict any loss on him or make him regret his decision. He was jubilant that people reciprocated his spirit of goodness and paid him in the same coin by paying him honestly for whatever they took in his absence.
Something as noble and heartwarming as this coming from my homeland restored my own faith in virtue and goodness and actually made me proud. In this day and age where greed, deception and falsehood are rampant, this is the kind of faith, optimism and spirit of service we are badly in need of to survive. There are still people, though few they may be, with hearts of gold. If each candle of goodness could light a few more around it, what a wonderful place this world would be!
Ayesha Abida Zafar
