A Daily Contrast

I was a standee in a public bus, hanging on to the handle just behind the row of the women’s seats. It was not by choice, but rather due to people behind, who pushed ahead. The bus stopped at a traffic signal; at the turn towards Dindoshi bus depot. I happened to glance out through a window and then something seemed strange and I glanced back. Below the fly-over and besides the corner a mother and her child lay. The utensils lying around suggested they have been there long. The mother was probably still in her late teens and the child was an infant but able to walk around. She lay on the ground. To be accurate she lay on the tar road just besides the foot path. The mother had placed an arm over her face, to blind out the light probably. She lay still. The infant moved onto her mother’s chest, lifted the sari and helped herself to feed. This picture was quiet disturbing but the strange thing that caught my attention was that the mother had still not moved.

All these events transpired and the bus hadn’t moved yet. A dog showed up before them. To my relief the mother lifted her arm and shooed it away. I thought I saw some of the women near the window breathe a sigh of relief. Just then I saw a man, in his forties, running across the road. I almost wished he was somebody from the government or an organisation rushing over to them to take them away somewhere better. He ran past them with indifference and the bus moved on.

I got down from the bus and was walking towards home. The memory of the day’s events was slowly fading now. A yellow bus halted behind me. I turned around and saw a little girl get down from the bus. She was wearing a chequered blue school uniform, a bag on her shoulders and a water bottle around her neck. She ran past me with arms wide spread and hugged her mother, who had bent down to grab her. My thoughts ran back to that corner under the fly-over and I did not like it. I asked myself why I am thinking about them. What good would it do to me or to them? Would I have got down from the bus and spared them a few coins? Would it truly help their misery? for how long? Maybe indifference is indeed bliss.