Another day in Paradise !

The following article is a collection of events that led me to writing this article. So I dedicate this article to everyone in the scope of these events.

It was warm, rather a hot day for January in Bangalore. The same afternoon when the Sun happened to be showing his mightiness, I happened to be travelling in a BMTC bus, the bus which showed amazing promise to get caught in every possible traffic signal. When the bus was waiting for Green in one such signal(the fourth one in my journey so far), I peered out of the window with nothing else to do, to take a quick glance of the moving World outside. It wasn't moving much. He was ugly, dirty and every adjective you don't want to use on a kid of his age. He would have been 12, probably, lesser, maybe. His palms were facing the heavens. His eyes stared into strangers' eyes. I looked at my companion's face(who had ventured with me to a movie, not the first time). She had a look, a what-will-I-have-for-lunch look, so did the kid, a will-I-have-lunch look, and so did I, a what-went-wrong look. I knew, I will remember his face forever.

On a Saturday evening, standing in a corner of my office, I was staring into far distance, probably looking at nothing in particular. Located in the outskirts of the city, the office was surrounded by small houses and huts mostly. Some will want to call it a slum, others call it rural Bangalore. Places in a low salary band, I was financially broke and wanted to save some money for a house I wanted to buy. When I was worrying about my dream house, my eyes wandered over a white structure(People who lived there, called it their house). It was a 10*10*8 foot structure, I guessed. And one day, I happened to pass it. After all it was a 12*12*10. Outside this house, a lady was sitting on a stone(which was used for washing clothes, when someone didn't bother planting their ass on it). She was nursing a child, probably 6 months old. When I passed them, the child(I am not sure if he was a bay or if she was a girl) looked at me, smiled a toothless smile and clapped excitedly. May be he/she got reminded of a chimpanzee he/she has seen on a visit to the zoo. All of a sudden, his/her mother whisked him/her into the hut..house.. whatever it was. My grave be a little bigger I thought. I lost all interests in my dream house.

I always walk to work, just because it is the one thing that at least remotely, resembles to some sort of exercise I do. My house being just over 2.5 Kms from my office helps it. I return back home by walk, mostly it well after dark. On one such walk, I saw this man. I was walking into the darkness under a bridge at around 10 P.M. The traffic was light and the road was deserted. However, the screams of rodents from an open drainage line running on both sides of the road kept me company. Had there been no cement barriers between the drainage and the road, I would have had the opportunity to led the rodents walk with me:). Out of the dark I saw something doing something on it. I saw him doing something. His hand was definitely at work. "Was he eating, sitting on that stinking thing?", was my first thought. Two more steps towards it, towards him and "Yes, he is eating something and it stinks more badly than the drainage". I was afraid to pass him. What if he bites me. But I mustered some courage and went past him. He was not enjoying his food. He was feeding him to live, probably only for a few more days. I gave a I-feel-sorry-for-you look. His wet eyes replied, "You don't know how it feels like." I really didn't know how it feels to sit on top of an open drainage and eat food that smelled like puke. He ate it till the last bite.

Outside Bangalore and my hometown, Chennai is the only other town, I have been to in the last couple of years. My winter vacations start there, mostly. On one of these vacations, I found myself crossing a railway platform to reach a friend's house. It was late in the night and the station was dormant but for the two of us chit chatting. Most of the platform dwellers had slipped into their dreams. Not her. She suddenly jumped in front of me, literally from nowhere. She was little over 5 feet, probably half my weight and of my age. She only said a word, "Anna". She didn't have to tell the rest. "I haven't eaten anything. Please spare me a coin !", I understood. I reached for my wallet. I heard a voice inside my head, a woman's voice. "You shouldn't encourage all this Ila !". My friend said inside my head. Was it her or was it me, in a woman's voice? Two women, one standing right next to me, bowing to no one, and other, standing right in front of me, bowing to all of them. I slipped a coin into my sisters hand and walked away. I never looked back. I still hear that one word in my dreams. I will take that to my grave as well. "Anna".

I don't know if there were a paradise. I there were one, i hope all these people find a place there. Because we are having it right here.