she

I was going to shopping mall with my friend who is also my colleague cum class mate. It was drizzling and auto stopped on signal of a busy cross. “Five minutes at least……”my friend sighed. “I have to prepare for day after tomorrow’s exam.”
“Hmm…… Thanks for coming with me.”
“Dosti ki hai to nibhani padegi hi” she said sarcastically and deliberately (smiling) without looking at me.
Suddenly, a girl of about 9-10 just appeared from nowhere and starting persuading me to buy a pen which sprinkled. (Though I’m not sure whether it could write.)
“I don’t have change” I said and genuinely I didn’t have. (Though I’m still not sure whether I’d have bought that pen if I had change.)
She again said something in Kannada which I didn’t understand but could make out that she was hungry and needed money to buy food.
Now my friend, a localite, replied that we didn’t have change. Beggar reverted again and we chorused same thing again.
That girl now requested me humbly, touching my feet, to give her something. I quickly leaned back shooing her away, looking at my friend with questioning eyes and grimaced face as if the beggar was an untouchable and had committed a heinous crime.
“Don’t look at and answer her.”
“How can I ignore her? She seems so helpless.”
“This is their business. Haven’t you seen that movie “traffic signal”?
By this time the girl had figured out that she was not going to get anything from us. She uttered something which we could not understand. Suddenly, she hit me on my shoulder with all her force and ran away.
“Understood. See the kind of people they are!” my friend said.
“What kind of people?”
“They all pretend.”
“But if they don’t, nobody will give them alms.”
“Because of these people, those who really need don’t get alms.”
“Hmmm”.
Signal was green and auto rickshaw started. We had a sigh of relief. But I could not efface the image of that beggar from my mind. What could have made her so violent? What environment she was living in? Was it I whom she was showing her anger against?
I tried to put myself in her place and I got shivered till inside.
What would that girl be dreaming about? What could be the objective of her life? What she wanted to be?
What miracle she was waiting for?
A dawn when she could enjoy the sun-rise. Or for a night when she would not have to worry about the breakfast next morning. If I was one of them who were making her feel nervous about her breakfast, I don’t mind her pushing me.
If she was forced to sell a particular number of pens to get dinner and I had turned out to be an unsuccessful lead, I don’t mind her trying to hurt me.
If she was dreaming about a day when she would have enough rags on her body to avoid unwanted attention of lecherous men and if I was one of those men, I don’t mind her even slapping me.
Great people say that we are the architecture of our own destiny. We are the reason for our present and responsible for our future. Now how does that girl control her present to make her future a little less troublesome? I don’t complain against that girl but I do complain against the society which is responsible for her regretful condition. A society that comprises such illiterate parents who leave their children with the legacy of such a disgraceful life. A society that has devils disguised in human beings who run the business of making children beg. If I am a part of this society, I don’t mind that girl spitting on my face.
We keep on complaining about our lives and the limited resources we have to fulfill our dreams. We never appreciate the scant privileges that we have been bestowed by god. Let’s first express unconditional gratitude to God for all that we have and try to help those people who don’t even have the basic amenities of life, no matter how meager our efforts are. Even if we are able to bring a small but meaningful change in their life, that action, at individual level, will achieve its purpose because it will make a soul happy.
If not their at least our.