The Unfriendly Uncle
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Naveen and his friends loved to play cricket. Every weekend they gathered in the small ground in their neighbourhood to play cricket. They had so much of fun playing together. But there was one problem. As their batting got better, the balls got hit very far. But they never got their balls back, when they fell into the land behind the small ground.
Behind the ground was an old house, with a high wall around it. The first time that Naveen hit a six, the ball went right into that garden. Naveen and his friend Shameer went and peeped through the gate. They could see that the garden was overgrown. It was covered with plants and weeds, almost like a little jungle.
In the verandah was an elderly gent reading the paper. “Uncle!” shouted the two boys, but the elderly gent didn’t turn to look. “Our ball fell into your garden. Can we please have it?” shouted Naveen. But the gentleman chose to ignore.
“I don’t think he will give it to us,” sighed Shameer. They both turned away feeling annoyed. The second time it was Amila who hit a six. The ball went up in the air and over the elderly gent’s wall.
“Hey, don’t hit so hard. Now we won’t get that ball either!” complained Chathura. “But isn’t that the whole purpose of the game, to hit hard and score?” asked Amila.
“Let’s not fight,” said Naveen.
“Let’s try asking him again.”
So again Naveen went with Amila and knocked on the gate. The elderly gentleman was there seated in his verandah as usual. The boys shouted, “Uncle, Uncle…” as loud as they could. But the gent didn’t even turn to look. “Please can we have our ball?” shouted Naveen. “There’s no point,” said Amila, “Let’s go”.
The boys lost about half a dozen balls that went over the elderly gent’s wall. He never bothered to even look up when the boys went and asked for them. So finally, the boys too gave up and stopped asking. They started calling the elderly gentleman, ‘the Unfriendly Uncle’.
Finally, they lost interest in playing cricket as well, because almost every day they lost a ball, when someone hit it hard and it went over the Unfriendly Uncle’s wall.
Now Naveen was a scout. Some days the scouts went to houses and did odd jobs for donations as part of their routine. Naveen and his friends had to cover the neighbourhood near the Unfriendly Uncle’s house. They went to a lot of houses and did work like sweeping, watering plants etc. But when they came near the Unfriendly Uncle’s house, Naveen was skeptical.
“He won’t give us any work, let alone open his gate for us,” Naveen told his friend Rasitha. “How would you know without even asking?” inquired Rasitha. “We play cricket on that ground over there. Our balls went over his wall so many times. But when we went to ask for them, he avoided us and didn’t even bother to look!” complained Naveen. “He’s not a nice person at all. We call him the ‘Unfriendly Uncle.’”
“Well let’s ask and see,” said Rasitha, peeping through the space in his gate. “His garden looks like a jungle. Maybe he’ll give us some work.”
“I doubt it,” said Naveen. “He’ll just ignore us or chase us away. He’s not nice at all.”
Just then the elderly gentleman opened the front door and saw the boys near the gate. He came walking towards the gate. “Get ready to run,” warned Naveen. “He’ll shout at us and chase us away now.”
But the elderly gentleman had a pleasant smile on his face. Naveen was surprised. He came near the gate and opened it.
“What can I do to help you two young men?” he asked with a smile.
“Sir, we are scouts…” stuttered Naveen. The gent smiled and pointed at his own ear. There was a small gadget fixed to his ear.
“I don’t hear too well son,” he said, “you’ll have to speak up loud!”
“Sir, we are scouts,” shouted Rasitha. “We are here to do any small job for you for a small donation.”
“Oh of course, do come in,” said the gent opening the gate. “If you could remove these weeds, that would be a great help. You see, I have a backache and I can’t bend down without this spine of mine giving trouble.”
Naveen and his friend started removing weeds and clearing the garden.
“So he can’t hear well. That’s why he didn’t come to the gate when we called him,” thought Naveen while pulling out the weeds. “And his garden is a mess because of his spine problem. We were not being fair by judging him as an unfriendly person.”
While clearing the garden Naveen came across all the balls they had lost while playing cricket. Once they finished cleaning he walked up to the gentleman. “Uncle, these balls fell over the wall while we were playing cricket on the ground next to your garden. May I take these?” he asked as loud as he could.
“Of course son,” smiled the gent. “If I knew, I would have given them to you before.”
As he was leaving, Naveen turned back near the gate, “Uncle, please let my friends and I come over here every now and then to clean your garden for you, since you can’t do it alone.”
“Thank you so much son,” smiled the elderly gent. “I would be so grateful.
That would be such a great help.”
Naveen smiled and waved at the gent as he closed the gate. “He is such a nice and friendly person. I must tell my friends and we should help him.
wWe should also never be too quick to judge anyone without knowing their side of the story,” thought Naveen.