The Child on the Street..!

As the signal turns red, I slowly squeeze my car just to break before the zebra line.

Suddenly this child appears from nowhere and does something which does not appeal to my senses...he just takes off his half torn, mud smitten shirt off his body and starts wiping the glass of the car standing next to me.

 I look across to the person in that car..he is equally shocked. He immediately raises the driver side glass that is down till now. The boy cleans the front view glass and comes to the driver side...the driver becomes tense...he knows that the boy will now ask him for money...he opens the side glass a little and shouts at the boy.."aye...mat karo...mat karo...". The boy anyways puts his hand in front of the driver...but the driver just shrugs him off.

The boy, to my dismay, now  moves to my car..he wipes the screen on the left side...and is about to start wiping the front screen, when the signal turns green. The other vehicles which were watching the scene for all this time suddenly start honking , the boys runs sideways. Poor child..does not get an opportunity to come to my side to ask for his compensation. Not that I care much..in fact I feel relieved that I was saved of the predicament whether I should give the boy some money or just shrug him off like the other car driver did.

As I push the accelerator I have a look in the side view mirror on my right...I see the boy still standing on the footpath... at the same spot...waiting for the next red signal. Just before I take a turn across the square to the right, I feel I see something in his eyes. I wonder if it is the anger against all of us who just do not care or is it mere frustration that he has go through all this  because he was born to poor parents.

While I mechanically drive back home,  the boy and his eyes keep coming back to me. Though this is not the first time I have seen children begging at cross-roads, this incident has disturbed me a little..it actually has made me feel guilty. Actually there is nothing wrong that I have done..the boy could not even reach my side or I would have given him some money.

Or would I? On second thoughts...I feel I would have probably not even pulled my glass down....the boy would have just thumped my window glass twice and seeing I was not interested would have just shrugged off...yes..shrugged 'me' off and gone ahead to the next car.

Yes...I now know what those eyes were saying to me when I sped off. They seemed to say me 'hey you..I know you care not for me...I know you dont give a damn for the situation I am in...but then...understand this...I dont give a damn to you and your air conditioned car either..I dont give a damn to anyone of you'.

Its the first time I feel that someone has taken my shirt off.....publicly.

I look in the side view mirror...and I feel the boy is still standing on that footpath... with a mischevous smile in his eyes.