Traffic

The wind was blowing warmth through windows of the tin bus, and even when the clock suggested that things be darker and cooler, the sun continued to radiate from well above the horizon. The road was a medley of whirring car engines and horns. The bus was now at a crossing and the evening was just like another weekday evening in this part of the city, people in their cars returning to what they called their home or to fancy restaurants, lounges, pubs, libraries and food.

The signal showed red and beside the bus came to halt a water tanker, it looked like a green dung beetle with a red mouth, a strong radio blared from the driver's seat, the red of his cockpit was gleaming with a mock against the sun, and if one looked at it, would in all certainty, bring a sigh of exasperation and curse the heat around. The tank in the rear which carried water (one is compelled to think that there is water inside the tank) was deep green in colour, the green looking at which one is reminded of the deep gloom in a prison cell or the deep feeling of loss and remorse. And further behind, as one continued to look along the length of the beast there was a huge tap with a cog wheel which when turned would bring the water gushing from the four inch wide spout.

She wore a cheap synthetic yellow sari, her frame was shriveled and her jaws swathed in dark skin glowing off the radiant heat, her eyes were fixed on the cog wheel and the wide spout, her hand carried an empty bottle made of plastic that was bruised and foggy, her feet hurried towards the tanker, knowing well that signals don't wait for the thirsty, she reached for the cog wheel and with all the strength her feeble hands could afford she tried to wrench it open, just then the giant beetle moved jerking away it's inertia, the signal went green.

Smogland

The noise was like a screen, and it was showing stench, honks, people, more people, more bags, counters, tickets, train timings, and less of the thing people carry around and never show on the platform, their mercy. It would shroud everything beneath ones knees, dogs, kids, beggars, dirt, and trampled lepers, there was no time for that. The queue was long and fast disappearing I was the tail.

Through that smog which hid every thing starting from the knees to the ground, I could see some movement, a boy, two feet and a half, wild hair, dark skin with smears of grey dust that the smog covered, the eyes, powerful and piercing, smog defying, the nose small and straight, the lips moving, murmuring a language from smog land, the noisy smoke drowned it . He walked on all fours like a spider searching for a prey. 'Clink' somewhere in smogland a coin must have dropped from the hands of a man who was from the knees and upwards, above the smog and putting his change and the ticket into his pocket. The spider gave a slight quiver and turned and rose, yet not above the smog, turned this back towards me and ran towards the 'clink' in smogland, he was wearing a trouser with one leg, whose hind had been ripped starting from the heel to the buttock, the flap still clung to the trouser, a small buttock covered with dirty underwear, he raced and before the person form nonsmogland could put his hands into the smog that appeared so thick in the distance, the spider was there, desperately trying to capture the coin that was still bouncing on the floor of smogland. The people of the nonsmogland are powerful, he kicked the spider, once and missed, twice and the hit his chin, he fell on this bottom, about to cry of the pain and his smog defying eyes at the guy from nonsmogland. The smoke of the noise covers everything, even the words that came out of the guy from nonsmogland, to the spider form smogland. The powerful handed the weak a coin from nonsmogland, coins are a commodity from the nonsmogland, 'clink''s are form smogland. The spider rose to this feet and was still below the knees of the people from nonsmogland, he had to be, he belonged to smogland. He came back now and I could see the back pockets of his torn trouser bulging with white polythene, the coin was in his canines now, forming a mound on his grey cheek, he turned around again this half ripped pant revealing the dirty underwear form smogland.

The Stump

He stood leaning forward, the left leg before the right, the right hand behind the left, the left holding a glass that he occasionally gave a jerk to, a slight upward jerk, enough to keep the coins tinkling, enough to keep the audience momentarily engaged with the misery he personified. They flow around him, he stands like a stump in the river, unmoving.

His shirt is a faded blue and he has trousers, biege maybe, but old, which make it difficult for one to say for sure. He has a pair of sandals, surprisingly well kept. His eyes are deep into the pits, they struggle for existence, they battle with the furrows on his forehead. His hair falls in shocks
over them. Those eyebrows must be raised, for he appeared to be looking into nothing, the nothing that the evening local crowd carries home over railway bridges, the nothing that is found in the eyes that look to settle over the tube for the rest of the night, the nothing that fills his stomach, and his life.

The boy

I was leaning back on the wall near the door of the first class compartment when he came in. A whole of four feet or may be three and a little more. His legs little and in slippers so big that the bands vibrated loose as he walked, he had to hold them between the fingers of his feet. A small head he carried on his shoulders with a thin neck, the hair was thin as well, thinner near his ears revealing he scalp. His forehead clear and smooth, and so are his cheeks, smooth and flat. His nose, like a button, flattened at the peak, and resting on his juvenile countenance. His eyes clear, sharp and shiny like a dark pool of wine. A shirt he wore and a short, both faded, and over his little shoulders was a bag made of cloth, a bag that reminds me of the grocery bag my grandma has, it has thin walls and a simple handle, the walls are opaque and they want me to ask myself about what it must hold. The bag is as big as his torso, so he has one hand busy trying to mind it and keeping it from slipping off (the cloth looks supple).
He has crossed the length form the door he entered to the door that I was near, the door that was far off the ground, the door that looked into the door of an adjoining local. He jumps off it and lands on his feet but can't take the impact, he must use both his hands, even the one that minds the bag, I see his little hands with their palms resting on the hot dusty ground, fingers outstretched, It must hurt, he steadies himself and the bag which is now on the ground (he used both his hands) he lifts. With some effort it is on his tiny shoulders again. His legs, I now notice are small but radiate a certain vibrance. Jumping over the gutter between the two rail tracks, with the merciless sun penetrating the thin patina over his scalp he jumps over again, into the other local train this time. My eyes still following him, his tiny hand is now in his bag, and out comes a shoe brush and some wax, I see his silhouette moving into the channels of the compartment, boot poliss! Came the cry.

A Boy

Blue checks over white and a crumpled short, a bag bigger than the back that supported it. He wore sandals a wee bit bigger than his little feet, they had dark round rings on them, must have been one of the many bruises you get chasing other kids in school or riding parked motorcycles. His hands, all smudgy of the dust on the school desk or (if he was not fortunate enough to have one) of the floor on which he learnt multiplication tables, held a small plastic bag containing "dal" the stuff which the railway stalls sell for a two rupee coin. When he boarded the train he was half way thru it, he used both his hands to clasp this modicum of an after school snack. One hand held the bottom of the polythene bag while the other was closing the opening that led to the dal. He ate taking a few bits every time, spilling a few sometimes, he was interested in knowing the fate of the bits that fell on the metal floor with holes for screws that had not been used, kicking those that did not fall in to the holes so that they would find a hole to lie in. He leaned against the walls of the compartment as much as the bag on his back would allow him to. Snacking on somnolently he suddenly decides his snack to be small enough to deserve a place in the shirt pocket, so the pocket now receives the dal hiding the hole that it possesses. He takes one grain at a time, spilling more than one thru the hole every time he puts his hand in the pocket. He has more spill offs to tend to now, more screw holes to fill. I tell him about the leak in the pocket, he nods nonchalantly, not even looking at me. The train has pulled into the station and he lifts his bag which is now on the floor (he took it off because it wasn't allowing him to lean enough). Getting down and spilling some more grains on the platform where there are no holes to go into he heaves his body over the bag. I walk away.