The students in the college admired his politeness and patience but no one knew that the force behind those virtues was the smile of the little girl. Every evening, while walking back home, he gave a chocolate to the little girl and she thanked him with her pleasant smile.

People in the locality called him Professor, though he was only a lecturer, aspiring to be a professor one day. He did not mind it because it gave him an added sense of superiority. There were only six fully constructed houses in the neighbourhood and the rest of the houses were either huts with thatched roofs or the brick built single story rooms with unplastered walls. He lived in a small two room house with a small garden in front of it. There was a separate kitchen and a bathroom. In front of the house there was a tin roofed shade which provided him shelter in the sweltering heat, when he could not bear the heat inside the house.

The little girl lived in a hut a few yards left to his house. Her mother sold vegetables and her father worked in a local stone quarry. The little girl was more than five years old but the parents had decided against sending her to school.

“What is your name?” was the first question he had asked on their first meeting.

Instead of answering, the little girl had given him a very pleasant smile, hiding the dirt and smears which were very much prominent on her little face.

“Tell me your name please,” he had asked again.

The same smile answered him.

In the evening, after spending his first day in the college, having been introduced to his colleagues and students, when he was about to start his lonely walk back home, he remembered the little girl. He stopped at a shop and bought a chocolate.

From a distance, he could make out the little figure playing in the dirt in front of her hut. She had a very old ragged doll as her companion in the absence of her mother and father.

He stopped in front of her and extended his hand. The girl looked at him, not paying attention to the chocolate which he held in his hand, and smiled.

The smile touched his heart and he began to marvel at the innocence which the Maker had infused in this little creature.

“I will give you this chocolate if you tell me your name,” said he.

The little girl looked at the chocolate first and then at his face. Instead of saying anything, she smiled once again.

He gave her the chocolate and resumed his amble in the direction of his house.

The second day and after that many other days followed and every day he repeated the same question ‘What is your name?’ and the same pleasant smile used to be the answer.

In this way, three months passed and he was happy that there was a little angel who greeted him every morning and evening with a very pleasant smile.

He had never met his mother and father because before his morning meeting with the little girl, they would be gone and in the evening they came back home when he would be safely deposited in his small house.

One afternoon, when he was about to leave the college for his home, a thought occurred to him. He thought of helping the girl. He wanted that she should go to school. He wanted to help her. He made up his mind to talk with her parents.

He was happy that he was going to do something good. Hardly had he reached the corner of the unpaved road which led to his house, when he noticed a crowd of people in front of the little girl’s hut. He got curious; he still had the chocolate in his hand.

He tried to go close to the hut but the people would not let him pass. He could not bear it and he said to a person standing near him, “What has happened?”

The stranger observed him from top to bottom and then said, “A speeding truck from the stone quarry hit Muniya. She died on the stop. Poor creature!”

The chocolate slipped down from his hand and tears appeared in his eyes. “What is your name?” had been answered with “Muniya.”