His Gaze

It was a long weekend, so Abhinav decided to take his wife and children to the hills for a holiday. His blind mother was to stay back alone in the house. She was quite used to looking after herself. So she did not mind being on her own.

It was 3A.M. when the old lady got up to answer the call of nature. She had a weird feeling that some one was watching her. She called out ‘Who is it?’ But there was no answer. She got up and moved in the dark towards the sound. But, she tripped over her grandson’s toy car and fell down. She winced in pain and clambered in the dark towards the phone. Hearing her fall, the burglar panicked and fled with whatever valuables he had put into his sack. As he rushed towards the door he stepped over the old lady’s hand in the dark! But he was swift enough to make a clean getaway.

Later, after the complaint and due investigations, five house burglars were taken into police custody for similar happenings in the neighbourhood.

For identification purposes, the police officer summoned the old lady to the police station. Her son told the officer that his mother was blind, but had insisted on being brought to the investigation room. The officer was hesitant to ask her how she could be of any assistance in identifying the thief. But, the old lady said, “Officer, if you could ask each one of the five suspects to step barefoot on my left hand, one by one, I will tell you who it was!”

The officer wasn’t quite sure of what she was coming to, but on her insistence, he asked the suspects to comply with her request. One by one each of them stepped on her left hand. When the fourth one put his foot on her hand, she exclaimed, “This is the one!” The Officer and Abhinav were confused. Was it prudent to arrest and convict a man, on the basis of such a testimony? But the old lady stood firm like a rock. She was absolutely sure.

While the police officer was trying to decide how to proceed, the fourth suspect of his own stepped forward and said, “Officer, I admit having done it. The old lady is right”. The officer looked at him in amazement and said, “So, you decided to confess? How is that so?” The accused man looked at the old lady intently and said simply, “If a blind old woman could see through my misdeeds, surely He who is omnipresent and has eyes all around must have seen me too. How could I ever hide from His gaze…”

If only we understand and believe that “God is in us, with us and around us all the time”, we can never do anything wrong.