Gurmeet Singh Bekraar
Her eyes sparkled like stars. Her somewhat dirty face albeit couldn’t hide the effervescent glow radiating from her skin. Whenever she smiled, two small dimples dug up holes on her cheeks. She was just four year old.
One morning, on my way to office, the bus all of sudden took a detour when I yelled at the conductor to drop me . The main road was under repairs and I had to traverse a kutcha road, a shortcut path, to reach my office. While walking by, a shabby piece of “rakhi” flew at my feet out of nowhere. Taken aback, I made a halt, looked around, a seemingly labourer’s wife raging in fire began scolding her daughter who had just flown that ‘rakhi’ at me. The little girl burst into sobbing with gasping breaths. I still was unsure why she did it. As I bent to pick up the sacred thread, a resplendent rakhi came out of my sleeves, adorned on my right wrist. That day was a rakhi day.
“Hey, why are you reprimanding her ?”
” Babu ji, she is my only child and she wants to knot a rakhi on his brother’s arm.”
“Why not her father?” I gave her an alternative.
“Who … saala .. sharabi. .. raat ko 12 baje ghar aata hai.” The lady exploded her best ever expletives.
Half weeping the little girl stood aghast with fear behind her mother.
“Le gudia … aa le bandh de mujhe rakhi”, a stream of affection inundated my adrenalin as I extended my left arm towards her. A ruthless weep suddenly turned into a big smile.
“You little angel …. now happy”. I took out a 50 rupee note.
“But uncle you are my uncle not brother ?” The little girl put forth a poser.
“Arre gudia …. does age make sanctity of a relationship belittled? Well I am your uncle and now your brother and also a friend. Happy.” I explained it in my own way.
“But babu ji please do not give her money. Her father shall snatch it any way.”Her mother pleaded with folded hands.
“What is your name gudia?” I asked.
“Anjali” in a chirpy voice she exclaimed.
“Beautiful name but I shall call you now onwards as ‘CHOTI’ (small).Okay.”I departed with a filled up mind as the couplet of a famous poet echoed in my ears: Ghar se hai masjid bahut door, chalo yu kar lein; kisi rote hue bachche ko hasaya jaye (The temple is far away to visit God, instead let us try to bring a smile on the face of a weeping child)
I returned next morning with a Barbie doll for her as a gift. To my surprise, she hesitated to accept it .. “Hey what is wrong ?”
“I need badi badi goggles,” she declared in a diffident tone. Her mother intervened and ordered her to accept the doll. “Babu ji, she wants to imitate the ‘Memsahibs’ who often wear trendy goggles.”
“It is not a sin to dream or aspire for bigger things.” I acquiesced to her wish and was about to return when she extended her little hands for the present and ran inside her make shift house of tarpaulin.
For next many days whenever I walked by my little sister tent ,I saw her playing blissfully with the doll. A sense of gratification ran amuck in my subliminal veins. I felt so proud of having made someone so happy with such a little gesture. Somehow Anjali’s fetish with goggles lingered in the back of my mind. As long as the main road remained under repairs, my digress helped me go by her little house. I often passed on my smile to her and she coyly showed up her little doll to me.
After few weeks, one morning my faithful bus reverted to its old route and bang dropped me in front of my office. Time doggedly rolled on at its usual pace. My hectic job routine assisted in eclipsing this little episode from my mind for more than a couple of months till one evening the smiling face of little Anjali resurfaced before my eyes. All at once avuncular feelings tinkled my heart strings, I went to the market and bought a trendy goggles for the little gudia.
Next morning with that surprise gift in my hand, I dropped earlier to my destination and chose to walk on the way to my little sister house. As I reached her house I smelled an eerie silence suffused the surroundings. As I called her name, her mother came out of the hutment and began sobbing inconsolably. ” Babu ji she is gone … ?”
” What happened ?” shocked I asked.
“Her father took her away …. Where … I do not know?”
“Why he did this?” curiosity triggered in me.
” I split with him. He started drinking too much … one night we had a big fight and by early morning he disappeared with my daughter .. ” her cruel wail was unstoppable.
“Did you report to the police?” I enquired.
” Of what use? I am alone here. Who will listen to a poor migrant?” cascading stream of tears clouded her wretched eyes.
For few moments I stood frozen, unable to process the proceedings. My feelings dropped silent. I was in a dilemma. Did I have the time to help her locate the little angel in this seemingly vast world where even in your own town you happen to meet your old buddies after many decades though living simultaneously at the same times. I knew within me that I could do nothing except to pray. With a jinxed heart I retracted my steps like a coward still mired in a quandary over what could have been done .. ? Time and space seemed constraint but absolutely there was no dearth of noble feelings. Time flew by many years. I still sometimes wrap off that surprise gift of trendy goggles undelivered and presumably unaccepted by my little sister whom I do not know I lost or was lost….?
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