Law of karma

*The Water Seller and the Well*

In a small village outside Ibadan, there lived a man named Tunde who sold water from a donkey cart. He’d wake at 4am, walk 6km to the clean well, fill his barrels, and sell to people who couldn’t make the trip.

Tunde was honest. He never watered down his barrels, even on market days when he could’ve doubled his money. People said, “Tunde is too soft. That’s why you’re still poor.”

He just shrugged. “The well gives me clean water. I give people clean water. That’s it.”

Across the road lived Emeka. Emeka also sold water, but he’d mix in water from the dirty stream, add a bit of perfume, and sell it faster. He built a bigger cart, wore better clothes, and laughed at Tunde. “Karma is for people who lose,” he’d say.

One harmattan season, the clean well dried up for 3 weeks. Everyone had to use the dirty stream. People who drank Emeka’s water started falling sick - vomiting, fever, children especially. The village elders traced it back and banned him from selling.

Tunde’s cart was the only one with clean water left, because he’d stored extra in his underground tank from before the dry season. He could’ve charged 5x the price.

He didn’t. He sold at the normal price and gave free water to families with sick kids. “The well gave me when it had water,” he said. “Now I give back.”

When the well refilled, Tunde’s name was all over the village. People walked past Emeka’s cart to buy from Tunde. Even those who used to mock him brought him kola nuts and palm wine during Christmas. Emeka’s cart rusted in his compound.

Years later, Tunde’s son got a scholarship to study engineering in Lagos, because one of the families he helped became a professor and remembered. Emeka’s son dropped out of school to hawk pure water on the highway.

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*The point*: The law of karma isn’t about lightning striking people instantly. It’s about cause and effect playing out over time through reputation, trust, and the kind of world you create around yourself.

What you put out - honesty, shortcuts, kindness, cruelty - tends to circle back, not because the universe is keeping score, but because people remember and systems respond.

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