smile_nimit

Human desires are like a deep ocean, so cavernous that no matter how much amount of water you put in it, it stays the same, looking for more. This nature of human being, the most intelligent species of earth, leaves him with sadness and with a feeling, “Am I the unluckiest person on this earth?”

There are a lot of incidents in life which leave us stranded. Incidents, which leave us without any answer what so ever. They make us quiet, throw us on the floor of reality from our world of imagination which we make for us in which we create a movie featuring us as the centralized character and the story of the whole world is revolving around us.

It’s not a long ago when a same kind of thing happened with me. It was a Saturday night and I along with my friends went to Civil Lines, Allahabad for dinner. During the journey from hostel to Civil Lines, we had a lot of fun but at the same time we discussed things about our futures, jobs, recession, etc. There was a look of a little anxiety on everyone’s face. Third year of college, everyone almost twenty years old, we are not teenagers anymore. Things have changed compared to three years back when we were at home and were enjoying our life in school, even few months ago when we were just II years and age of twenty was looking too far. At the end of journey, the time I was coming out of auto rickshaw, I was feeling that we were so unlucky that we are experiencing the difficult times of recession.

The thought process was continuous and smiles were not pure. The line, “Why this is happening, why everything is not good like I thought?” was constantly echoing in my head. Suddenly I saw something which left me blank. I was no more thinking about anything else. I was lost.

A small girl, about nine years old was picking up something from roadside. She was wearing a torn frock, very dirty and it’s stupid to think that she was wearing any sleepers. The thing she was picking was looking like a burger, a half one, eaten from one side and thrown on road. I saw a man moving away from that spot. He was a regular middle class guy. He was cleaning his fingers with his white handkerchief which was turning yellow from the spots he was touching it. It confirmed the owner of that half eaten burger. And if there was any doubt then it was clear from what he was shouting, “What a horrible day, bad day at work, job in trouble and now this. Stupid burger maker!” he was shouting so loud that it brought a smile at everyone’s face. But I was still looking towards that girl. She picked up that burger and ran to cross road. She was half way through when she noticed that she dropped a piece of onion at the same spot she picked the burger. She turned around and when she was about to move, suddenly a car ran in from her front which scared her and she dropped the burger again. I was still at my position when my friends noticed me that I was not walking with them. They came to me and asked to walk along; I said “Wait.” They looked at the girl picking the burger again and stopped. May be they were feeling same as I was, actually feeling nothing, totally blank.

She crossed the road, took that piece of onion and this time more carefully left the spot to cross the road again. None of my friends was speaking anything. She came at the other side of the road. M.G. Road in Civil Lines is a broad road having walkway at both side of the road divided by a partition. If the incident we just saw was painful than the next thing we saw was homicide. There was an infant sitting on the footpath. He was naked, literally no clothes. This line is emphasized because it was almost end of October and it was cold enough to make us wear light jackets. She sat beside him; tore a small part of the bun and put in his mouth and with her other hand took a small piece of onion in her mouth. I felt like falling, I touched road and it was freezing. Her innocent smile was throwing millions of swords on me every second.

But this was not yet; a dog came to them and silently started licking legs of the small child. Before we could have done anything, the girl shouted in fear, threw the bun, picked her little brother and ran away. Maybe hunger makes all opportunistic of the lowest level possible. The dog didn’t waste a second and grabbed the bun and ran away. The baby was crying. The tears were leaving his eyes and were making an ugly mark on his cheeks which were dirty due to dust and soil. She at the same time was holding her and was trying to wipe his tears. She was saying, “chup ho ja bhaiya didi khana le aayegi.” It slaughtered. I was no more feeling my soul My eyes met hers and I was unable to look at her. I knew this wasn’t my fault but for some reason I was feeling guilty. As soon as I moved towards her she ran very fast like a deer being attacked by a tiger. I wanted to say something but no words came out.

Someone hold me from behind and moved me from there. I wasn’t feeling anything, I found myself a culprit of being on the wrong side of the dirty law of life. I didn’t look at anyone. But it took me some time to come back in a proper frame of mind. What I know that I never asked myself “Am I the unluckiest one and why everything is not perfect?” again. It changed.