“A Candle in the Fog: One Act, A Thousand Lights”

“A Candle in the Fog: One Act, A Thousand Lights”

There are moments in life that come unannounced—subtle, almost whispering in their arrival—yet they leave behind ripples that widen across the pond of existence. In the grand theatre of this world, where we all play fleeting roles, it is often the unscripted gestures, the unrehearsed acts of kindness, that illuminate the darker corners of another’s journey. One such moment remains etched in the ink of my memory, soft yet unshakeable.

It was a monsoon-drenched evening in a small hill-town where the rain wrote verses against tin rooftops and fog played hide-and-seek with the valley. I had gone seeking solitude—my usual companion on tired days—and paused under the trembling shelter of an old tea stall. The aroma of chai mingled with the earthy perfume of petrichor, and the world, for a fleeting second, felt musical and melancholy all at once.

She was there—an elderly woman wrapped in a tattered shawl, eyes clouded not just with age but with a quiet longing. Her palm trembled as she reached out, not with words, but with silence. Around her were scattered half-worn books, some missing covers, others missing entire endings—like her, perhaps, abandoned by those who once found value in them.

Something stirred in me—not pity, not sympathy—but a shared solitude. I sat beside her, bought her a cup of hot tea, and listened—not to tales, but to the eloquent pauses between them. Her story was one of quiet survival: once a teacher, now forgotten by her students and time alike, selling used books to make ends meet.

I returned the next day with fresh notebooks, pens, and a warm woollen scarf. I bought the remainder of her books, though I didn’t need them. I simply wanted her to feel read again, to be seen as someone whose pages hadn’t yellowed, whose chapters were still worth revisiting.

Weeks later, she was gone. The tea stall owner told me she had moved—someone took her in, an old friend perhaps. I like to imagine she found a home where her stories are told again, where her presence isn’t just tolerated but treasured.

We often think of kindness as a grand display—a public act of generosity. But real kindness is often invisible, intimate, and unrecorded. It lies in the sacred act of recognising the divine in another’s suffering and answering it not with noise, but with the soft hush of compassion.

In the Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna says, “He who has no attachments can really love others, for his love is pure and divine.” And in those quiet moments of giving, when one expects nothing in return, love finds its most authentic expression.

And so I write, in stanzas soft,
Of moments when the world went aloft—
When silent tears met hands unasked,
And kindness wore no gilded mask.

A scarf of wool, a cup of tea,
Can birth a bond as vast as sea.
No trumpets sound, no banners fly,
Just souls that meet and softly sigh.

To be a candle in someone’s mist,
A warmth that sorrow can’t resist—
Such acts don’t shout, they merely shine,
Unseen, unheard, yet so divine.

Kindness need not announce itself. It only needs to be.