Wordless

This was different. I've been wordless before, like all of us ... sometimes in front of a delectable damsel, or a scolding father, or an angry principal may be. But this was different ... and I was wordless, in the truest sense possible.

I'm not very sure if I'll be able to present the fineness of my experience in an appropriate manner, but I'm at least giving it a try.

The begging children in the local trains. Like any other day, I had my eyes fixed on a novel as the train rattled off to Beach station. A little girl, may be 5-6 years old, after performing all those weird-and-tough-for-Jacki-Chan stunts, turned to her warped up steel plate and started her everyday routine ... asking for money as her mother who was preoccupied with a couple of infants, waited for her to collect from the entire compartment.

The girl came to me, and like every other time, I said no. She didn't leave. The compartment was tightly packed, and I didn't want to move from my place and lose my seat.

"Eh, Po. Chillar illya. (Go, I don't have change.)" I asked her to leave.

She didn't leave, and instead grabbed my hand with both of her little hands, keeping her begging-plate over my lap. I looked around, everyone had eyes to offer. I checked my wallet, and I swear there was really no change, or even paper money. I wasn't lying to her, at least now. Thus I showed her my wallet, and expressed my inability.

She still didn't let go of my hand.

"Enna problem? Chillar illya ma." I tried explaining my situation to her in my broken Tamil.

I shook off her hands and kept the wallet back in my pocket. When I turned back to her, she was standing with her head buried in my lap. I thought I should give up my seat, just to get rid of her. I took hold of her shoulders and made her raise her head off my lap.

She was crying, not audibly, but her eyes were as wet as the soil of the rained-down Chennai. She pointed at her mother and two infants, and signaled her hands as to eat. She was not asking for any money now.


I did not know what could I do. I did nothing.

She didn't leave me till her stop came. Her mother kept shouting at her, but the little girl didn't move. She didn't beg either. When the train reached Egmore station, she tardily left me and followed her scolding mother out of the train.

Don't know why, but I could not look around myself. I took the novel in my hand and didn't take my eyes off the pages till my destination arrived.

Hail the god.
_____________________