There Comes A Twist In The Story OF A Kerala man feeding street kids and getting a bill waiver. Here is the real story

You Recently Read A Story Of A Kerala Man Feeding Street Kids And Getting A Bill Wavier But The Real Story Don't Seems To Be As Such! 


Akhilesh Kumar, a Dubai-based engineer, shot to fame overnight after his Facebook post narrating a heart warming incident of providing food to street kids and receiving a bill-waiver in return went viral. Now, a lot of holes are emerging in the story, especially after a clarification from Kumar.

To start with, his January 6, 2016, post was based on something that happened in 2013. The bill, with “We don’t have a machine that can bill humanity. May good happen to you!” scribbled on it, which added the extra virality to the story was actually re-created by Kumar “verbatim”, as he could not find the original bill. And, no one is sure that the hotel that is getting all the attention was actually the place where the story transpired. However, Kumar doesn’t understand how the post became viral when he did not give anyone permission to share it.

This is how the story, was reborn. In a Facebook post, written rather poetically in Malayalam on January 6, he said he visited a small hotel in Malappuram in Kerala and ordered food. When he was about to take the first bite, he saw two street kids looking at him with blank eyes from outside the window. He invited them in, made them sit next to him and fed them. They ate well and left. When he called for the bill, the hotel waived the bill and wrote this instead:

Needless to say, the post went viral — thanks to a nudge from a Facebook group called Right Thinkers. As it was reported widely online, people started asking questions. Why was the post shared so late? Who wrote the bill? Which hotel was it?

Kumar is baffled that his story was shared without his permission. On why the post was delayed by well over two years, Kumar said he started sharing his life’s instance on Facebook only recently and this was one among many other such posts. In fact, he just “wanted to highlight the deed of the restaurant and not himself” when he shared it.

One of the mysteries here is how Sabrina Hotel came to be associated with the bill, when Kumar himself does not remember the restaurant’s name. In fact, people have pointed out that it can’t be Sabrina Hotel because the infrastructure is such that one cannot see outside the window. Kumar says it was a small hotel in Malappuram and he doesn’t remember the name.

On the other hand, the manager of Sabrina Hotel is flooded with calls from media across the world inquiring about the viral bill. George, the manager, who had joined a year ago told IndianExpress.com that “the incident may or may not have happened here because it’s the policy of the restaurant to give food to the needy in case someone shows up”.

Incidentally, there are media reports stating that the restaurant is ‘upset’ with Kumar because he is taking all the credit. Kumar says he called the hotel and apologised to them for the calls they are receiving.

Kumar admits that the bill shared on Facebook is not the real bill because he had lost it a while ago. But since the incident happened for real, he decided to download a random bill format and wrote the message shared by the hotel verbatim. But that doesn’t say Sabrina on it, though there are phone numbers on it and the address is almost the same.

“I never wanted any fame, I had posted the story many days ago. It’s only later it went viral. My motive was to show how humanity still exists and that too through the gesture the restaurant showed. Organisations should have checked with me first,” says Kumar.

Full text of the post:

He had gone for a company meeting in Malappuram. It was the same annual congregation…a hundred people assembling to boast about things and leaving a question mark…a meeting of machines. That’s why, the mind had also become like a machine…one that was rusted with dust.

The meeting ended. He took a lodge thinking he would go back in the morning all fresh. Hunger was over-whelming. After taking a bath, he trooped into a nearby restaurant. Everyone was eating and there was a good scent in the air…Food of people of Malappuram does not need to be questioned anyways. Hunger doubled.

Ordered for porotta, chicken curry and tea…And then he saw a pair of eyes through the window looking earnestly…a sack can also be seen. His eyes were onto the food in everyone’s plate…but no one seemed to be noticing him…He called him inside, but the boy was accompanied by a little girl too..looked like his sister.

They sat down on little chairs in front of him. What do you want, he asked them. They pointed to the food on his plate. He ordered for another plate of porotta and chicken curry. The food came…but just as the boy started eating, the girl stopped his hand…Having understood why the girl stopped him, the boy got up and washed his hands. The little girl also went with him.

Everyone was now noticing, as if something big was happening…they ate the food in front of them, but did not talk or smile at each other…After eating the food, they looked at him once, washed their hands and left the place..he had not touched his food even once…he realized that his hunger and thirst had melted away…

It felt like some things were flashing through the mind…ate the food fast. Now have to sleep, he thought as he was very tired…asked for the bill…when he came back to the table after washing his hands, he found the bill….tears that had never come from his eyes started flowing down his cheeks…took a glance at a fat man sitting at the counter…he also looked back and smiled…the same non-mechanised laugh from a pure man…nothing has been lost…when he was walking back to the home, his heart was larger, a realization that he was different from the machine-like people around him.




source: indianexpress

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