The Trinket Seller

I simply called the poor little child of ten as a trinket seller till she entered my home.

By the time I narrate this story she lived with her mother in a huge cement pipe, lying unused on the road side. A bedding, some utensils and some trinkets - cheap imitation jewellery were her property.  The mother and the child lived in the pipe-dwelling. 

   Near the pipe there is a city bus stop. Myself and my colleagues had to take our bus at that stop in the morning around 9 AM and alight at the same spot in the evenings. By day break, the mother and the child finished with their morning routine. The child spread a polythene sheet near the bus stop and arranged the trinkets on it neatly. Before our bus came, I engaged the child in conversation and bought one or two trinkets almost daily. Her mother rarely stirred out of the pipe. She came out of the pipe only to cook food or wash clothes, a few yards away from the pipe.

  The child was thin but tall for her age. Her big round eyes were the chief attraction in her lanky face. She was losing some of her upper teeth and her semi toothless smile was an added attraction to her face.

  As I always found her in a tattered frock, I offered fifty rupees to the mother to buy the child a new frock. But she refused. “No sir.” She refused politely, “I’m not a beggar.”

  “Sorry!”I said,”I don’t want to hurt your feelings. But the child’s clothes…”

  “The money we get from selling the trinkets is enough for us. Soon I will buy her a new frock.”

  Her polite refusal of alms increased my respect for her.

  Whenever I bought trinkets from the child without bargaining, sometimes paying more than the actual price, under the pretext that I had no change, my colleagues often teased me that I did all this because I had an eye on the child’s mother. Though I dismissed their jokes, it was an undeniable fact that the child’s mother must have been a beauty in her hay days. 

  When I returned home with a trinket or two in my lunch box almost everyday, my wife flared at me. “Why do you buy the same trinkets again and again? Do you pity the little girl or her mother?”

  That day when it was time for dinner, I did not get up. I was still hurt at my wife’s rude comments. She stood behind me and put her hand on my shoulder.”Sorry dear,”she said,” I shouldn’t have hurt your feelings.”

  I melted instantly and got up for dinner.

  We were married for twenty years. But we had no children despite consulting many doctors. I suggested to her that we should bring a child from any orphanage and bring her up. But she did not agree, saying that an adopted child could never become our own.

  My wife was tired of scolding me for buying the same trinkets again and again. She gave away most of the trinkets to the children of our maid servant. 

  Days were passing on without much change. Soon the hot summer gave way to the rainy season and the monsoon rains began.

  Soon the Dasara festival approached. There was colour and gaiety everywhere. A huge canopy (pandal) was erected near the city bus stop and the statue of Durga Mataji was installed at an auspicious time. The deity was worshipped twice a day - during morning and evening and the prasadam (offering) was distributed for the devotees who gathered at the pandal. The offerings usually consisted of bananas and acacia jaggery. The trinket seller attended the pujas (worship) with her mother everyday and collected the prasadam with great devotion.

  Though Vijaya Dasami is a public holiday, I had to attend my office on some urgent work. By the time I reached the bus stop, the bus was about to start. I got into the bus on time. So I had no time to chit chat with the child. 

  Clouds were gathering by the time I returned from the office.  After getting down from the bus I looked around for the child. She had already packed up her trinkets and put them in the pipe - her dwelling. She approached me and said,”Sir, my mother is down with a fever. She hasn’t eaten anything since the morning. Could you fetch a doctor?”

  I was thoughtful. I wanted to go into the pipe-dwelling and inquire about her health. But I checked myself as some people were already observing me curiously. I rushed to a nearby medical shop and bought some antibiotics and painkillers. “Give something to your mother to eat and then give these medicines.”  I put the medicines into her hands and left for home.

  I had my dinner and went to bed. But I could not get a wink of sleep. The light rain which started, soon developed into a heavy downpour.  I was alarmed for the safety of the mother and the child. I looked beside me. My wife was having a sound sleep. I got up and rushed out with a blanket rolled up under my arm. 

  I rushed into the pipe dwelling and she lay, muttering incoherently “my child…”my child…”

  I spread the blanket over her, up to her heaving bosom and looked at her once beautiful face intently for sometime. Suddenly the child beside her stirred. I took a last look at her face with an intense emotion and left the place.

  The next day was a working day for us. I walked to the bus stop with a presentiment that something bad might have happened to the woman.

  Before the pipe-dwelling lay the woman motionless. The child buried her face in her mother’s lifeless bosom and was crying her heart out. Soon a crowd gathered and one of them telephoned the local municipal office.

 Our office bus came and went. But I did not get into the bus. I stood my legs rooted to the ground. The child’s eyes were searching for me. But I stood far behind the crowd and avoided her glance.

  The municipal van came and the woman’s body was shifted into the vehicle. As the van started  to a crematorium, the child thought that her mother was being taken to a hospital in the van. So she kept asking the crowd, “which hospital mother is being taken? When will she be back?”

  Nobody in the crowd bothered to answer the child’s question. Soon the crowd dispersed.

  All the while, a range of emotions were surging up in my mind. “Why Couldn’t I come forward and arrange for the final rites of the woman?” I thought.  “Had I done so, my neighbours would think that the woman was my keep and her daughter was my love-child. Such a rumour would eventually break up my family.” I reasoned within myself.

  Finally I came to the conclusion that I should take charge of the child. I stepped forward.  I took the child’s hand into mine and said,”Let’s go home.”

 I took the child home and explained to my wife what had happened briefly. I told her that I would admit the child into an orphanage. 

  “No dear,”she said, hugging the child, “the child is ours.”