It was in my aunt’s house back in Kolkata during the hot mid summer time. I sat on the bedside crunching into the juicy green apple and so lost was I in the depths of atlas shrugged that I did not notice the maid had come in to clean the room. She was followed by her daughter who held her mother’s sari in one and in the other clutched an old ragged doll.
But when I finally lifted my head off the book, I saw the girl sitting by the wall starring with wild consternation at the book I was reading. A rush of pity swept over me as I saw her. Her small pale face streaked with dirt was framed in a mass of matted hair.
As I drew closer to her, she tugged at her tattered dress and crouched near the wall. “What is your name?” I asked. “Piku” she answered in a frightened but meek and soft voice. “Piku” I echoed and the girl fled from there and held her mother’s leg. I got up and casually joined the duo. “Your daughter is very beautiful” I remarked. The maid smiled. “Which standard does she study in” I continued. “She doesn’t go to school” answered the maid as if I had just slapped her with that question. “But why? A government school is good enough?” I suggested. “Memsaab, it is not possible for me. Everyday I go out in the morning and clean the streets and houses. Her father is too lazy to do anything but eat drink and beat us up” she replied tearfully. Piku’s small face grew even smaller and her large round eyes looked hurt and ashamed. Those eyes haunted me the whole day. The innocence in them coalesced with a pain of lost childhood was too much to take.
“Let’s do something…. Something ma... anything” I whined to my mother. “Oh you and your bright ideas, Ritu. You can do what you want, I’m sure she is quite happy” said my mother. “No she’s not” I said stubbornly. I wasn’t going let my mother’s assumption dampen my zeal.I wondered the whole night what I could do for her. But, considering it was me, everything appeared too implausible. Next day when I went for my customary walk in the morning, I noticed Piku petting a dog outside her slum. This was the slum from where all the maids in our
locality came from. It has structures of mud and roof of tin and tarpaulin. It was in itself another world of the poorest of all: rickshaw pullers, lepers turned beggars, scrap collecting kids, suffocating sweat-shop workers and maids On seeing me, Piku started waving vigorously at me. It was quite a bolt from the blue, for the amount she was terrified of me yesterday. She pulled my hand and beckoned me inside. Though I was one of those over germ conscious people I simply followed her in to the slum. She hopped, jumped skipped and walked so oblivious to the fact that the shack also housed cockroaches, lizards, excreta, and disease. It just then that it impinged on me that for human beings who live in abject penury, suffering from a scourge of diseases, hunger, malnutrition, eunuchs its not luxury they see. It’s all about EXISTANCE.
On seeing me, her mother who was cooking got up abruptly. Both of us felt equally self-conscious I suppose. She offered me some of what she was cooking. I took it hesitantly and stared as if I were expecting some worms to spring up any moment, and when they didn’t; I put the whole thing inside my mouth and gulped it down with the water I was carrying. Piku was making some shapeless figures on the mud floor out of the water that had fallen due to my hurried gulping. Yes!! I knew what I had to do. I thanked Piku’s mom profusely for the food. I stood up and as I was leaving “get your friends to your house at 10 today, I’ll come with a big surprise” I said smiling. Though she didn’t smile back, she nodded apprehensively.
I ran home, pulled out some pages from my cousin’s notebook, took his discarded crayons, slate and chalk and set off for the slum. I was greeted by a class of odd shapes and sizes .11 of them all so thoroughly bored. “Hello” I said. They stared at me. “I’m Ritu. I’ll teach you how to draw.” All of them nodded. They all sat down and I gave them paper and crayons.” Ok first draw a round and draw lines from it” I said demonstrating it on the slate. “Then we will………….” I continued on till all of us had a completed picture of a sun with eyes nose and mouth, two big brown mountains, a blue stream and a disfigured house... when the picture was finally over each one of them was lost in the marvel of what they had just created with their own little hands.“Who lives here?” asked Tuktuki whose artwork (I felt) was the best. “Cinderella” I answered unthinkingly examining everyone’s drawing. Some stupid pride I was experiencing at that moment. But the feeling was too overwhelming to pay attention to anything else. Cinderella however caused them to double up and shriek with laughter. “Who’s that?” asked Raja more seriously. He wore spectacles of mended glass and appeared like a logical idiot among the other dreamers. I felt like Einstein had just asked me to explain the theory of relativity.“I’ll tell u tomorrow”, I said realizing that it was time I packed and went home before my parents sent the entire Kolkata looking for me. “Tomorrow all of you come to the playground near my house and I’ll tell you”, I saw their energized faces and continued “but only on one condition- all of you should come neatly, take a bath fine?” “Piku bring them all right? Ok then I’ll leave.” As they all got up their faces fell. Slowly and pretty reluctantly they handed over the drawings to me. “NO NO”, I screamed. “Keep it keep it. Piku you just collect all the crayons and carry on.
Please don’t return the drawing” I was literally wailing. The children were ecstatic. “Bye then. Tomorrow 10 o clock” I said and left. I didn’t want to look back at them. I felt weird. The smiles of those tiny tots are lights that will never be extinguished in me. It personified a lot of human emotion that one normally doesn’t get to experience everyday.
The next day at 10 all of them came to the big ground and quite amazingly very neatly dressed. Piku was spearheading the team. As they all sat down I could smell a different soap on each one of them. We all formed a circle and sat and I started “once upon a time in a far far away Thus every alternate day they had a story session and a drawing session and soon Cinderella, snow white, sleeping beauty, Akbar Birbal all made their ways into their hearts. It was an eerie feeling I experienced after every encounter with the children. It’s totally ineffable. Seeing them look up to me as a lighthouse of knowledge, zest and zeal truly made me feel consummate. Each day they came, fresh to board the train to the next fairyland. I wasn’t a very good story teller but what I told them was probably beyond their dreams which caused them to listen so wondrously. With princesses finding their unicorns to knights slaying dragons, with princes reviving sleeping beauties to fairies turning pumpkins to carriages all paved their path in to their hearts and minds.
And soon 4 weeks passed….
It was time to leave for Bangalore. I was bidding farewell to all my relatives….. But I had one special guest. It was Piku. In her hand was a newspaper that was sealed on three sides with mashed rice. “This is for you” she said in a small voice. I took it appreciatively and impulsively hugged the damsel in front of me. I heard retorts but who gives a damn, I loved this girl and I was going to miss each one of the 11 of them. I left… left the city of joy but took memories. In the train I remembered the little gift I had received. I carefully removed the sealed ends and the content inside made me give a short cry of joy.
Inside were 11 drawing, all the drawings had a big girl in the middle and standing next to her was a small kid holding her hand. Not to mention how perfectly they had got my plaited hair and They all stood under the sun that had eyes nose and mouth, two big brown mountains a blue stream and a disfigured house.
And quite suddenly I burst into tears. It was the tears of giving those poor kids a glimpse of what really childhood is. Who said slums are always in a state of dystopia? After all there are happy endings there too. I sat clutching the drawings wishing that this spring of joy would last a little longer in their lives.
