The Little Acrobat
The first thing I noticed about her was her grimy dress. Her face and body were equally coated in sweat and fine black dust that seemed to have made permanent snaky streaks, but I noticed mainly her dress. Because it was in sharp contrast to my just bathed, perfumed, crisply uniformed five year old daughter, sitting smartly in front of my Kinetic Honda, all set for school.
The grimy girl, around my daughter’s age was performing acrobatics on a footpath at a traffic junction – front and back walkovers, bridges through shockingly tiny hoops and splits in a routine, while her mother kept the beat with a drum. A baby by the mother’s side stared listlessly at the traffic, sometimes chewed on some ripped footwear or clawed at his mother for attention, which she rarely acknowledged.
We always got the red signal at that junction. I didn’t like it, because the little acrobat always brought out emotions that I didn’t want to acknowledge. I could never make up my mind about the poor. Did I feel sad? Was I apathetic? Was I guilty because I couldn’t or didn’t want to do anything to help uplift their plight?
So generally I tried not to look at the little acrobat for fear of having to pay her for entertainment that I never asked for. I didn’t know whether to pay her or not. If you paid them, some people would say you were encouraging begging, child labor and cruelty, and if you didn’t, some others would give you a look that made you feel like Scrooge.
My daughter on the other hand stared with wide-eyed innocence, and oohed-aahed and clapped her hands. And she would say, “Mummy, I want to do that stuff too! It looks like such fun! School is so boring!” or ask disturbing and unanswerable questions like children are most wont, “Mummy where does she stay?”, “Why isn’t she in school like me?”
Then one day the junction felt bare without the little acrobat and her entourage. I thought I would be relieved, but instead it got me thinking about her whereabouts. Did they move to greener pastures? Was she sick? Did something happen to her baby brother?
Then I overheard a biker telling his friend that foreign dignitaries were visiting the city, and that the police were on a beggar and street-dwellers disinfection drive, to give a clean and progressive impression to the visiting foreigners.
A few days later, the little acrobat was back at the junction. She seemed to have recognized me and my daughter as she smiled shyly through her routine. I felt guilty and tossed a coin, hoping that it wouldn’t go towards the booze of her assumed drunk father.
Then one day, she veered from her routine and laced through the stationary traffic with an outstretched hand. She stopped by my bike; I fumbled in my purse for a coin. “Aunty, don’t give me the coin. But can you give me her uniform?” She asked, pointing at my daughter.
I was wordless.
Just then, her mother bounded up and in one swift motion jerked her roughly by her dress and onto the footpath, ordering her to resume her routine. With tears welling, the little acrobat got down to business. Her mother fixed me with a cold stare that continues to haunt me. A stare that makes me cringe for filling innocent eyes with an impossible dream.
The next day, the junction was bereft of the little acrobat.
Meera Guthi is a freelance writer based in Bangalore. Her works have won in several writing competitions including the Reliance Timeout & Unisun Creative Writing Competition (2008-2009) and Kathalok Short Story Competition in 2003. She writes stories and articles for Deccan Herald, The Hindu, Indianfo.com and Rediff.com.
The first thing I noticed about her was her grimy dress. Her face and body were equally coated in sweat and fine black dust that seemed to have made permanent snaky streaks, but I noticed mainly her dress. Because it was in sharp contrast to my just bathed, perfumed, crisply uniformed five year old daughter, sitting smartly in front of my Kinetic Honda, all set for school.
The grimy girl, around my daughter’s age was performing acrobatics on a footpath at a traffic junction – front and back walkovers, bridges through shockingly tiny hoops and splits in a routine, while her mother kept the beat with a drum. A baby by the mother’s side stared listlessly at the traffic, sometimes chewed on some ripped footwear or clawed at his mother for attention, which she rarely acknowledged.
We always got the red signal at that junction. I didn’t like it, because the little acrobat always brought out emotions that I didn’t want to acknowledge. I could never make up my mind about the poor. Did I feel sad? Was I apathetic? Was I guilty because I couldn’t or didn’t want to do anything to help uplift their plight?
So generally I tried not to look at the little acrobat for fear of having to pay her for entertainment that I never asked for. I didn’t know whether to pay her or not. If you paid them, some people would say you were encouraging begging, child labor and cruelty, and if you didn’t, some others would give you a look that made you feel like Scrooge.
My daughter on the other hand stared with wide-eyed innocence, and oohed-aahed and clapped her hands. And she would say, “Mummy, I want to do that stuff too! It looks like such fun! School is so boring!” or ask disturbing and unanswerable questions like children are most wont, “Mummy where does she stay?”, “Why isn’t she in school like me?”
Then one day the junction felt bare without the little acrobat and her entourage. I thought I would be relieved, but instead it got me thinking about her whereabouts. Did they move to greener pastures? Was she sick? Did something happen to her baby brother?
Then I overheard a biker telling his friend that foreign dignitaries were visiting the city, and that the police were on a beggar and street-dwellers disinfection drive, to give a clean and progressive impression to the visiting foreigners.
A few days later, the little acrobat was back at the junction. She seemed to have recognized me and my daughter as she smiled shyly through her routine. I felt guilty and tossed a coin, hoping that it wouldn’t go towards the booze of her assumed drunk father.
Then one day, she veered from her routine and laced through the stationary traffic with an outstretched hand. She stopped by my bike; I fumbled in my purse for a coin. “Aunty, don’t give me the coin. But can you give me her uniform?” She asked, pointing at my daughter.
I was wordless.
Just then, her mother bounded up and in one swift motion jerked her roughly by her dress and onto the footpath, ordering her to resume her routine. With tears welling, the little acrobat got down to business. Her mother fixed me with a cold stare that continues to haunt me. A stare that makes me cringe for filling innocent eyes with an impossible dream.
The next day, the junction was bereft of the little acrobat.
Meera Guthi is a freelance writer based in Bangalore. Her works have won in several writing competitions including the Reliance Timeout & Unisun Creative Writing Competition (2008-2009) and Kathalok Short Story Competition in 2003. She writes stories and articles for Deccan Herald, The Hindu, Indianfo.com and Rediff.com.
