Face of Innocence

I dread the moment when I have to see her every morning. I close my eyes or pretend to be busy with my mobile. Yet it doesn’t help my mind drift from her – and the bitter truth that she reflects.

She’s dressed to amuse people who stop at the beam of the red light. Her moves are tuned to the rough music a young lad creates through an instrument. Her tiny stature compliments her feat with the loop to make her look like a dwarf-clown. She swings the ring around her fragile tiny body to entertain the onlookers.

Yet, I choose to turn away.

I look into her big innocent eyes and adorable face rather intensely as she approaches me hopeful for alms. I didn’t quiet know what I was searching for. I thought I would be lost in the incessant depth of her innocence. I’m not sure what I found either. But yes, I couldn’t find the happiness, freshness… I couldn’t find the sparkle in her eyes which surface on my 3 year-old niece’s face, as she looked at the little girl curiously. It was all silent and empty, full of questions – about herself and the world around her. I came back. There were too many questions for a child’s mind to ask. I gave her some coins and she moved ahead.

As the little child beggar went from one vehicle to the other, I looked around at the people. There were young boys laughing at her notoriously; an old man in a car who smiled at her as he gave her alms; and my cousin next to me, who was enlightening me with her school of thought, which suggested I shouldn’t have offered the girl any money as it encourages the children to beg.

I wondered what was it that turns the little girl into an object of amusement on the roads. It puzzles me – was there something that would encourage the little girl to leave the safe haven called home and walk amidst cars mindlessly racing ahead?

I look at her again. I look at my niece. And perhaps I can project their future as well.

The traffic begins to move, as the signal turns green. I shall meet her tomorrow yet again. She shall dance like an orchestrated doll and come to me hopeful for coins, leaving me disturbed.

In her naïve ways, the little girl makes me realize how helpless I am - the little girl begging on the roads for a living.