To most of us, beggars are nothing more than an eyesore, but for Lucky, unsure of her age somewhere in the late 20s, heckling devotees outside a temple in south Delhi is all in a day’s work. Thankful for her defective left eye, Lucky is convinced of the adage of ‘ask and you shall receive’…
It seemed like child’s play when I had started, but then everything is at that age. To people, I was a sort of an opportunity to rinse their soiled conscience, by being kind to an underprivileged kid like me. My mom, similar case as mine, had no clue about her dad. She is a sad simple woman who sits outside the same temple where her mom used to sit. I, on the other hand roam about heckling the visitors to the shrine, on sympathetic and sacred grounds. I was a fast learner of this trade and thanks to my left eye (infected since age four and now completely ineffective), I used to beat all competition, even nursing mothers! For the next five years I was the main bread earner for my family including my mom, two elder sisters and a younger brother, but as one gets older, the earnings reduce. I remember I was just seven, when an extremely generous ‘Gori’ (a foreigner) gave me a sweater, bought me fancy food and even gave a crisp five-hundred rupee currency note. My family was ecstatic, as I had earned about twenty days’ income in one! Since that day I was named Lucky and even after 17 years of living off random acts of generosity, I will consider my life living up to my name.
It seemed like child’s play when I had started, but then everything is at that age. To people, I was a sort of an opportunity to rinse their soiled conscience, by being kind to an underprivileged kid like me. My mom, similar case as mine, had no clue about her dad. She is a sad simple woman who sits outside the same temple where her mom used to sit. I, on the other hand roam about heckling the visitors to the shrine, on sympathetic and sacred grounds. I was a fast learner of this trade and thanks to my left eye (infected since age four and now completely ineffective), I used to beat all competition, even nursing mothers! For the next five years I was the main bread earner for my family including my mom, two elder sisters and a younger brother, but as one gets older, the earnings reduce. I remember I was just seven, when an extremely generous ‘Gori’ (a foreigner) gave me a sweater, bought me fancy food and even gave a crisp five-hundred rupee currency note. My family was ecstatic, as I had earned about twenty days’ income in one! Since that day I was named Lucky and even after 17 years of living off random acts of generosity, I will consider my life living up to my name.
Source : IIPM Editorial, 2008
No comments:
Post a Comment