думать.simple

I wonder if he is a prisoner of life. He wakes up, with the mosquitoes all chewing him up, and chewing where they have already bit before. Before he knows it, he wanders off to the nearby market where the rediwaala sells his fresh cucumber and kakris all lined up and decorated. Just as the rediwaala looks away, he steals a few of his produce and stuffs them in his mouth, as he runs off to somewhere near. The sight of streetlights means he is nearing home.

He toils for a few paises and a cup of chai a day, sometimes selling balloons and toys, and sometimes wiping off all the window stains of the rich people in their cars. Sometimes he just begs for alms. He sees the day lift its curtains for night light to pour in, with a sweep of cool airy bliss. But sometimes, its just too cold, and so he runs, runs away from the cold, and to warm his body. But then, he runs out of air, and his lungs start to give in. So he settles down on a pavement on the land of mother earth. Sometimes, the police chase him off, but a very lucky few times, they mercifully let him be. As the frost starts to dig his grave, the sun, one lucky winter night, intervenes and acts like the mother who has only eyes for her child. But the sun has eyes for us all.

Mother earth and the fatherly sun are the only of his kin. One day, another fatherly figure in the form of an old man in his dying days wrapped around in a dilapidated, somewhere torn, and throurghly worn-out rug offers him his lifeline of so many years. The shivering lad, denies, in all self-restraint he can conjure up, by all self-respect he can search for somewhere lost. The father, however, loses his restraint, he doesn't survive the night. He remorsefully removes the rug from his naked body. He is thankful, but shivers in self-loathing, and runs away crying. He prays to some God he fears, and he is thankful, for the greatest gift he has ever received, even if remorsefully. But , maybe, he already has the greatest gift of them all. Maybe he has shame, something we never had when we let our country rot to what it is now.