The air was thick with the scent of salt and damp earth as we departed Vakkom. At seventy, my mission was simple: escort my 91-year-old mother, my sister Jabeena, and my wife Arifa safely home after a heart-warming visit with Fathima Kutteema our mother’s cousin, a couple of years her junior.

​As dusk settled, a light drizzle began to blur the windshield. We were on a desolate stretch of road, far from the comfort of village lights, when the silence was shattered. A needlessly high speed bump caught us off guard.

​Clang

​The sickening sound of metal grinding against asphalt echoed through the cabin. I cursed my judgment. I should have slowed down. My military mind, honed by years of habit, went into assessment of the situation: the silencer clamp had snapped. We were stranded in the rain on a Sunday evening, with a nonagenarian in the backseat and not even the remotest probability of a mechanic in sight.

​The Shadows in the Rain

​As the drizzle turned into a steady downpour, I stood by the roadside, praying for a miracle—or at least a passing taxi. The road remained stubbornly empty. The plan was simple. Leave the car in situ and somehow find a taxi to get home.

​Then, out of the darkness, three figures appeared. ​Three young men, strangers to us, emerged from the gloom. They didn’t just ask what was wrong; they took charge. Without a second thought for their clothes or the mud, two of them slid under the car into the cold slush. One held a mobile flashlight steady against the rain while the others diagnosed the wound.

​”The clamp is gone,” one said, wiping grit from his forehead. “But don’t worry. We will fix it.”
​One youth vanished into the night, returning minutes later with a coil of metal wire—a makeshift lifeline. For twenty minutes, they worked in the mud. I watched, humbled, as these three strangers labored in the dark to ensure a great grandmother they didn’t know could get home to her bed.

My mind went into assessment mode again. These youngsters may be trying to make a killing out of an opportunity. They would possibly demand a bomb as compensation once they could execute a makeshift repair job. I told myself that even so they were angels. It was alright and i could afford it.

​ A Lesson in Virtue

​When they emerged, drenched and covered in grime, they gave me a simple thumbs-up. “It will hold for twenty kilometer,” they promised. “Go now, before the storm breaks.”

​I felt a wave of sheepishness. I reached for my phone, explaining I had little cash but wanted their phone number to enable a digital payment as a token of my immense gratitude.
​One of the boys stopped me. He didn’t look at my phone; he looked at me, folded his hands in a respectful gesture, and smiled.

​”We are not looking for money,” he said softly. “We just wanted to help.”

​They urged us to leave quickly, waving us off into the blinding rain as if they hadn’t just performed a small miracle. As I drove, the screeching of metal was replaced by a profound silence in my heart.

​We often complain about the world moving too fast or losing its way. But that night, on a dark road out of Vakkom, I realised that human virtue isn’t rare—it is all-pervasive. We just have to wait for the rain to see it shine .