The bell rang and my mother found
three kids standing outside the door. “Our parents have left us. We have no
one. Please help us.”
****
About twenty years ago, a lady
used to visit us with her daughter. They were very poor and somehow made both
ends meet. I don’t really remember as these cases were handled by my mother. She
used to give them old clothes, some money, food, etc. Sometimes the lady did
odd jobs for my mother in the house. As the years went by, her daughter became more and more beautiful although the dirt and poverty hid her face; perhaps nature’s way of
protecting her.
After a few years my mother told
me that the girl had got married. We almost forgot them as their visits had stopped.
One day when I returned home a familiar
face stopped me on the door. It was the girl, her face still delicate but the beauty had disappeared in these few years. She had kids and a sad story with her. Poverty
was again the reason of her returning to my mother. Her visits increased gradually.
One day a man came enquiring
about her. He claimed that he was her husband. He informed that she had left
him and their sons at home, and went away with their only daughter. We never
heard about the girl or her husband anymore.
After almost a year it was yet
another generation pleading with my mother. Three sons of the girl! It was a
chilly winter morning when the bell rang and my mother found three kids
standing outside the door. “Our parents have left us. We have no one. Please
help us.” The look of the kids took me to them. In the harsh winter, they were
without any woollens. The elder one was bare-feet.
I kept asking questions and the
elder one, aged 10 years, answered. He said that after their mother left them,
the landlord drove out their father saying he wouldn’t allow a family without a
woman!
His father moved to the city with
his sons and started working as a rickshaw-puller. They stayed on the footpath.
However, that was not the end. Another
blow to the kids came was when one day their father left them. The kids
continued to stay at the same footpath. They started begging for food. When someone
gave them money, the elder one used it to buy food and save for some other
needs – like a slipper for his youngest five year old brother, or getting a
haircut for them. He showed me a black plastic bag which he said he used when
someone gave them some food. Whatever food they got during the day, they had
for lunch and saved some for dinner. My mother gave them some money and my wife
gave them some woollen clothes of our children. They left with a smile.
That morning, after a long
time, I cried.
What will be the life of these children and perhaps hundreds of such in this world, I kept thinking the whole day.
