The Apple Truck

A man owned many trucks. He used to let them out for the transport of apples from Himachal Pradesh to the plains. In the wee hours of the morning he got the message that one of his trucks had skidded and overturned on the highway. At dawn the truck owner went to the site of the accident, to look in to the matter.

He was pained to see the truck laid upside down on the roadside. Most of the apple boxes had split open and the apples were strewn all over the road. Luckily there was no loss of life. The Insurance company executives had come to assess the loss. The contractor who owned the apples came to retrieve what ever he could. A crane was called to put the truck back on its wheels. Many hours passed, each professional, doing his job to get things back into the streamline.

It was late in the evening when the truck owner returned home, tired and weary. He told his elder sister, “In the hurry, I left my wallet at home. I’ve not had a bite all day. I’m really hungry. Get me some food quickly.”

As she served him food, she said, “Didn’t you say that there were apples strewn all over the road? Why didn’t you pick up a couple of those and eat them? Why did you go hungry all day?”

He said simply, “How could I? They didn’t belong to me!”

How true! We are answerable to others later; first and foremost we are answerable to our own conscience!