the boy who grows up on a cup of tea

As i climb down the stairs every evening to have puffs of smoke, i wish it were the last... by now, i've almost learnt the simple law of doing nothing...

i have a glass of tea from a short cheery man with a defective leg who perches himself throughout the day above a smouldering stove, his eight-year-old son doing the rounds of shops and customers on a busy street, forwarding earthen cups and stained yellow to people calling themselves journalists...

i pass him a 2-rupee coin and forget him and the son who tries hard to learn riding a bicycle after 8 pm, when the roadside stall closes and the pressvans roll in and choke the road. His father rubs himself hard with a gamcha, perhaps to wipe off the day and its pangs, someone else uses the stove to cook food for customers...

i finish my drag... try to slow it as far as possible, for i have to climb up and stare at a blank screen and pretend being involved with work i know that is not there...

as i climb up the stairs, the lift moves, packed with journalists who never tired of climbing...

i see the boy through the tainted glass that always appears dark from outside...
visibility is a privilege... there's the boy wandering round in circles and round again his father's shop... a wonderful scene on a wet street that had soaked off huge quantities of rain...

what's his name? i've to ask one day... today it had rained and his father had a tough time attending the stove and his customers... the pre-monsoon storms that started on from yesterday evening have killed nine people in the city, some stuck by lightning, some electrocuted while wading through water, and two fell down down open manholes that couldn't be seen through knee-deep water... names that would be forgotten by tomorrow afternoon as the papers are bundled off and carelessly flung away...

the reports say the unimportant bit, how the chief minister had a tough time as his car broke down, they had to arrange benches on which he stepped to walk into his party headquarters....

but the eight-year-old had a smile on his face today... his father had handed him a cup filled with the magical brew that keeps them living, our eyes met as i saw him proudly holding the cup... it was his own, he savoured every sip... and his eyes glistened in pride....

somewhere in this wretched city, close to the gigantic presses where "news" is made and dies are re-cast each day, a child is growing up on the streets of life...