Zarina had lost her mother within six weeks of her birth in Ahmedabad. Her father then migrated to Mumbai in search of a job that was not there. So, at the age of five she became a hard-working rag-picker. One day she was so exhausted as to fall asleep outside a small fruit shop. It was past midnight when her grandmother located her and started beating her mercilessly. Luckily for her, it was Diwali time, and fruit-sellers were still at work at 2 am. The fruit-seller outside whose shop Zarina had fallen asleep heard her shrieks and played Providence, as it were. Chhotubhai was a devout Hindu; yet he saved Zarina from further thrashing; moreover, he promised to help her family if the girl was not forced to work as a rag-picker.
Chhotubhai kept his word, but a misfortune befell Zarina. A resident of a posh colony accused her of stealing ornaments from his house; the police arrested her. But Chhotubhai continued to believe that she was innocent, and furnished a written bond for her. In the event, however, the “stolen” jewellery was found in the house of the complainant! His faith in the poor girl’s integrity thus vindicated, Chhotubhai decided to look after Zarina as his own daughter. As she grew up, Chhotubhai was worried about finding a suitable Muslim match for her as though she were his own daughter. A Muslim bangle-seller helped him find the boy, Ayub of Aurangabad. Chhotubhai’s enthusiasm for this nikah proved infectious; his business friends, led by Shantugiri, also a Hindu, arranged every Islamic ritual that real parents perform at their daughter’s wedding, and Surjit Singh, a Sikh, who owned a hall that he rented out for ceremonial occasions, offered the place and his services free of charge.
Thus, people professing different religions decided to organize weddings of five poor girls every year, with Chhotubhai bearing a major portion of the expenditure. The fruit-seller’s deed, of course, deserves to be written about in rubric, but what, if anything, did he get in return, except perhaps the satisfaction of having done his duty to a fellow human being? Many would have us believe that God helps those who help the poor, and Chhotubhai would perhaps be the first to admit that his act of humanity did not go unrewarded. We may or may not believe that God was pleased with his gesture, but the fact remains that he who had one small shop when he adopted Zarina soon came to own a chain of fruit shops, all doing roaring business round the year. Divine reward or punishment is, of course, a matter of faith; material prosperity is not.
