As I set out for office from my flat, I noticed my landlady coming from the opposite direction. Except for an imperceptible nod, I didn't smile nor did I greet her. She too nodded and went her way.

In the beginning, when I'd just rented the flat, Mrs Ghosh (the landlady) would always smile and greet me with "Good morning Mr Gupta!" but when there seemed to be no response from my side she stopped doing that and these days we only nodded at each other. It's not that I don't like or respect my landlady but that I no longer care for what I felt trivialities.

Some people might call me rude and I guess quite a few who know me only recently have secretly wondered why my parents named me Raunak (which means brightness) for as far as they knew I was curt and of sour disposition. I don't blame them but I was not always like this. In fact I was quite the contrary. Why, I can still remember the time when I'd been voted the most polite and courteous guy in college And that was what had attracted Naina towards me. Soft-spoken and gentle natured, Naina was my college classmate but I'd never paid much attention to her. It was she who approached me and slowly we became friends. We discovered many interests in common. Our talks would go on and on for hours and we'd be reluctant to part company. We found that gradually we had fallen in love. There was not much opposition from our parents and we managed to convince them to get us married.

Our marriage was a simple affair with only a few guests and our families. Life seemed to stretch out like a road of bliss when tragedy struck suddenly. Naina had begun to experience sudden spells of dizziness and headaches. Upon diagnosis, she was found to be suffering from brain tumour. Everything became hazy to me, the tests, the operation, its failure and before I realized what was happening, Naina was dead.

My Naina, my beautiful sweet young wife-dead! For months afterwards I was in shock. When I finally emerged from the shock I was no longer the Raunak Gupta of before but a hard and bitter man whose illusions had been shattered. Life was cruel, I decided, and drew a cloak of aloofness around me to protect myself against its blows. Little did I realize then that it was a flimsy cloak and that I carried the wrong attitude towards life.

Shortly afterwards I quit my job in Lucknow and arrived in Delhi to work as an accountant. This morning during lunch hour I strolled down to the nearest magazine stall. While I was browsing through the latest issue of a magazine making up my mind whether to buy it or not, I was diverted by a gruff insistent voice coming from the adjacent florist's stand. "But baby, you only ordered ten and now you want twelve!"

A little voice piped up in response, "No chachaji, I know I ordered for twelve. Anyway let me have the ten." A bantering argument ensued between the two. Curious to know what was happening I peered closer. A small girl of about 9 or 10 years old with her hair tied in pigtails was stretching her hands to receive little baskets of multicoloured flowers which the florist was handing over one by one. A well-dressed wealthy-looking man emerged from a Palio parked nearby, bent down and said something to the little girl. The girl nodded and the man yelled for his driver to put the baskets in the car. By all chances the man was the little girl's father. Once all the baskets had been collected and put in the car, they paid the florist and drove off.

Somewhat curious, I strolled over to the florist's stall and struck up a conversation. I mentioned the little girl and asked casually what the argument was about. "Oh, that!" he exclaimed and looked sheepish. "That was Shiril baby. She comes with her father every morning and buys 10 baskets of flowers. This has been going on for quite some time now. They say it's for the patients at a clinic near their place." A few customers had gathered by now to buy flowers and my lunchtime too was running out. I sprinted back to the office.

Later in the evening, I passed the florist's stall and recalled the noon's events. What the rich do to salvage their image, I thought to myself and shrugged to myself. After all it was their money and they could do as they pleased. It didn't cross my mind that the reason had something to do with nobility of heart and compassion. I was too much of an embittered cynic to think along those lines. Days crawled past. Occasionally, I saw the little girl and her father buying the baskets of flowers.

Meanwhile, a letter from my parents who were still in Lucknow arrived. Since all of my sisters and brothers (we were five of us) were happily married with lovely kids my parents wanted to see me settled similarly. They couldn't bear to see me as I'd become now- a widower at 28 and a die-hard cynic. They kept persuading me to remarry. "It's not as if you are betraying Naina - she would be in peace we know, so why don't you take up the chance to start afresh after all you are so young and you have your whole life ahead of you!" they would say. How could I explain to them my innermost fears, that I was too afraid to care again in case fate deals me another blow? No, I thought to myself, I am better off as I am. I finished reading the letter and put it away inside the drawer of my desk. I went across to the window and peered out. The weather too seemed to draw inspiration from my state of mind-it was bleak dark and grey.

Then one day while doing routine balance sheets in office everything blacked for a moment. Since this lasted for no more than a few seconds I ignored it. But when this incident was repeated thrice in the next two weeks I decided it was time to do something about it. So I dropped in at the clinic near my flat for a check-up. The doctor there suggested some tests had to be done. I got them done and was told that the report would be given a week later. The doctor called my office a week later and asked me to come down to his clinic immediately. He looked very grave and serious as he broke the news, "Mr. Gupta, I suspect there is some kind of growth in your brain and I suggest you get a biopsy done immediately- that will tell us whether the growth is malignant or benign. In layman terms the biopsy will tell us whether the growth is cancerous or not."

Embittered and cynical though I was, my life certainly mattered to me. Learning that I might die young was certainly not a pleasant discovery. I made arrangements for the biopsy the following day. I thought of ringing up my parents but then refrained from doing so. Why worry them unnecessarily? I decided to wait till the results of the biopsy came out. The biopsy was scheduled for Tuesday.

On Tuesday morning as I lay on the bed in the nursing home, I began to think about what the doctor had said. He'd asked me to be prepared for the fact that the growth could be malignant. Though he did insist on my being positive he also said being mentally prepared for the worst outcome would definitely reduce the shock. My gaze was aimlessly wandering around the sparsely furnished room when I saw it. A beautiful little basket of flowers was placed in the centre of the table adjoining my bed. I had been so intent on looking elsewhere that I hadn't paid attention to the table right next to my bed. The pleasant colours of the flowers instantly cheered me up and I felt my spirits lifting.

The biopsy proved a little painful for me and I fainted right in the lobby. I was put on medication and was asked to stay in the nursing home for a few days. Each night I went to bed not feeling like waking up the next morning. I had lost my will to fight back and was now resigned to accept whatever the results would show. I no longer had the zest for life I had a few years back.

Each morning however, when I woke up, there would be a fresh basket of flowers on the table and looking at it somehow I gathered courage to go through yet another day. The flowers symbolized hope for me.

On the third morning there was no basket and no flowers. The bare table looked macabre to me. I assumed they had forgotten. For the next two days however again the table was bare and there was no basket of flowers to provide cheer and hope to me.

When the nurse came in to administer an injection I asked her, "Sister, why no flowers today?" gesturing towards the table. Her face looked suddenly drawn and haggard as she answered my query.

"Those flowers used to come from a little girl. She and her father used to come in every morning and deposit a few baskets to be put on every table in our nursing home. Today she didn't come and she won't be coming here anymore." The last line was said in a choked voice as though she was trying to prevent herself from crying.

"Why won't she be coming anymore?" I asked.

"Because she succumbed to cancer yesterday. Shiril Matthews is no more." The nurse almost shrieked out the answer.

I gaped at her with an open mouth. Shiril? The name somehow seemed familiar to me. Oh yes! Now I recalled. That little girl buying baskets of flowers near my office. The florist had told me her name was Shiril. To know that all along, she herself had been a patient and in the end succumbed to the disease shocked the wits out of me. I remembered with a sense of shame how petty I had been in judging the girl and her father.

In a quiet voice, I asked the nurse for more details about the girl. The nurse obliged willingly. When little Shiril had been diagnosed with cancer, she had her first encounter with the dark, intimidating world of terminally ill patients. She often saw people lounging about in the nursing home with not even a shred of hope in their eyes.

Young though she was, her mind comprehended the wretchedness and the despair of the people. Maybe she couldn't give them life, at least she could give them hope in whatever little form she could. So she brought those cheerful and colourful little baskets of flowers to the home everyday. Not only that, she would often visit the patients and talk in her cute chirpy voice and bring considerable cheer to them. Despite going through pain herself she never cringed or flinched from what she had determined to do.

It was only when the illness became extremely severe that she stopped coming in person. For the last three days there had been no baskets because three days ago, little Shiril breathed her last. The nurse stood silently for a few seconds. Then she quietly walked away from the room.

Something seemed to have changed in me. I don't know how or why but suddenly I felt I had been so foolish all along in trying to run away from life. I felt ashamed of having been so rude to everyone all these while. When I walked out of the nursing home that evening I was a different man than the one who had come in. I had once again found the will to live, to embrace life with a zest. All because of a basket of flowers and one little girl with a noble heart.
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