sheets and cardboard pieces.
A while later the woman threw a paper bag on the girl’s face, which smelled of rotten bread and stale oil. The girl hungrily opened the bag and started to munch the bread. She stopped only after she had licked the last of bread crumbles.
She went out to find a tiny plastic cup of tea, which she drank with equal haste, and then slipped back into her rag, and slept coiled up like a snake in that small room.
I kept seeing this from the plastic bag, imagining the human ways and diversity of human life.
In the morning, as the yellow skinned girl was shook from her deep sleep by the vermilion smeared woman. She handed her 5 coins and asked her to get a packet of tobacco and bidi from the shop.
The 5th coin being me.
The girl, staggered sweepingly in the tiny twisted lane, making her way through heaps of garbage, avoiding slipping inside open drain holes and animal shit.
She asked for the items she had been instructed to buy, from the shopkeeper.
As she gave the coins held tightly in her tiny palm, the shopkeeper returned her the last coin that was me, saying that the price of the bidi packet had gone a rupee down. The girl took me back and clinched me tight in her tiny weak fist.
On her way back she opened her palm and had a look at me with her eyes shining. Instead of taking the same route back she took some other way; this place smelled of dyes and spirit.
Colourful sheets of clothes were spread over a huge distance, basking in the sun light.
The little girl hurriedly ran towards a small garden. The garden was more of a garbage dump, a few naked kids played around with cycle tyres.
Her hurried steps began turning into strides. She almost slipped in the dingy drain pit adjacent to the muddy wheel of a wooden trolley. It looked dirty and smelled of different flavours infused in moist wood. There were painted images of ice candies on the body of the trolley and a big metal bell hung on the top shaft with a tattered rope.
The tiny yellow girl opened her palm wide open.
I was smeared with her sweat. I could clearly see her face. A pale face with shining eyes and dry purple lips which adorned one of the most beautiful smiles I had seen and probably would ever see again.
Between you and me I was exchanged for an ice candy- between me and the yellow skinned girl I was exchanged for happiness. I felt so elated sliding inside the iron box kept over the ice cream trolley.
It was cold in there but my heart felt very warm and I experienced the emotion called the joy of giving.
I never knew of the pale tiny girl anymore, my life was up for another turn. May be the wicked woman found out of her stolen happiness and gave her enough tears to repent her childhood innocence, maybe she never did. May be the tiny girl keeps this as her best kept secret and cherishes this as her sweetest childhood memory. I wish her love.
Chapter’s take away –
Joy of giving: Happiness is inexpensive
Happiness is such an inexpensive thing. Just simple actions and gestures can bring about so much happiness in someone’s life. Joy of giving need not come packed in fancy wrappers and expensive brands. A glass of cold water offered to the courier man who delivered you a letter this summer afternoon, a smile to your neighbour, a word of appreciation for your co worker are all tiny things but they bring about bigger joys.
CHAPTER - 4
Coin Of Learning
Thy might Thy education!
Inside the iron box I smelled of different flavours, vanilla, chocolate, lemon all mixed with coldness of squashed ice. Discovering life was turning colourful. One day many trades. One life many roles. I was learning so many things. Staying in a house as a piggy bank captive – made me meet my teacher.
Her hands were so soft; she got me spinning over her dining table and kept singing. These were lines of a famous old Hindi song. I can’t retrace which one, but the words came so well out of her pink lips.
Her room smelled of fresh flowers and there were books adorning a full wall unit. The room was large and airy, walls white with random wooden furniture placed carefully to contrast the simplicity of the layout.
She left me on the table as the phone rang loud and made a soft turn towards the window, her long hair flew backwards as she hurried. She was divine.
She was my first teacher, she was my first guru and her beauty was matched with her intelligence. I owe my wisdom and capability to coin my story to her.
Professor Shashi Bala Sundaram.
By the afternoon I could only know her name and profession. By the evening I knew that she lived with her father and 2 younger brothers – Vijay Kant Sundaram and Shri Kant Sundaram.
The boys were aged around 12 and 15 years respectively. They were bright kids inheriting the same genes from their parents that gave their sister the glow and aura in her personality.
Before the dinner was served, Vijay picked me up and broke my thought process. He yelled, “Why is the coin kept here? Who so ever has kept it here is now notified that this goes in my piggy box.” There was no response at least for the 5 seconds that Vijay waited, there was no claim.
So, here I was slid inside a huge piggy bank. Thud over my coin community. I could hear some whispers and rounds of laughter over the dinner table. It soon got silent, first went off the TV volume, then the dragging of chairs and ruffle of newspaper. Slowly the lights went out and it was silent.
I slept too with my teacher’s pretty face all over in my dreams.
The morning came in as early as the night went off. I heard Shri and Vijay revising their lessons from school. They were talking about a Mathematics Olympiad and both were determined to win it.
After a few hours, I heard chants in an elderly voice, later the smell of freshly brewed coffee filled the space. Soft Carnatic music played in the backdrop, soon the house smelled of sandal and jasmine. My teacher’s sweet voice poured in a strange language, in between a bell tinkled at some intervals. She was singing a song it seems and it was in a language that I could not understand but I liked what I was hearing.
My teacher left for her college soon after. She was a lecturer in a state college and taught Physics. I kept missing her the whole day, the house was silent and all I could sense were a few footsteps, ruffles of a newspaper and music. Later in the day, I smelled of spices, curry leaves and a pungent sharp smell maybe it was chilly and mustard.
Shashi Akka, I soon started recognizing my teacher by this name, arrived in the afternoon. She spoke gently and changed some pleasantries with her father in her mother tongue – Tamil.
Her father offered her a cup of coffee and she sat in the rocking chair near the window, next to the wooden almirah on whose topmost cabinet I was seated, in a semi transparent plastic box.
She was talking about something serious with her father in their mother tongue; I could make out from their tone.
Soon the boys returned from school too and
