Thursday, March 26, 2009

A Thursday

It was a Thursday. As I walked out of Sanpada station, I saw two children squatting on the footpath. They were naked - not a thread clothing their dirt-covered bodies. Mucus running down their noses, they sat there in the sun, as a lady wearing rags tried to fix up their breakfast. The lady was perhaps their mother or just an accomplice in the begging syndicate "business" they were involved in. I'm not sure if she was fixing them a meal out of motherly love or fraternal compulsion. I walked towards the adjacent bus station to catch my bus to Vashi and something that I had heard someone say came back to me, "There are no ordinary children. Every child has a name, a passion, a story to tell and a place in history. There are no ordinary children."

Those children must have been aged between 2 and 3 yrs; old enough to have a name, a passion and stories to tell. Did they have them? I don't know. I think yes. Will they ever have their place in history? I don't know.

/*** Caution - Post khatam. Random bakwaas ahead ***/
400+ is the number of days since I last posted here. No, I wasn't away on a NASA sponsored manganese-ore finding mission to Saturn. While I understand that would be the only sane reason to justify my inability to post, that just wasn't the case. I was very much around. Lets say I just didn't feel like doing it; Or perhaps I didn't push myself to gather my thoughts and post them. I made efforts - lots of them. I made false starts - started penning down a post here, collating my thoughts there, but never went the whole hog. Saving the regrets for another post. Well! So here I am. Again :)

Note kiya jaaye Melaard - San Pada is where I live. It is an upmarket neighbourhood bordering San Franciso. Yeah. I know. That sounds preposterous. In fact, Sanpada is just the opposite. Its a typical 'ghar' type area in Navi Mumbai, and I've come to love the place over the last 3 years.