It was a balmy sunday evening and I was in the Plaza for a leisure walk. My little one, hardly year and a half old, was busy toddling around and exploring the surroundings with her new found freedom.
Now as we grow worldly wise I guess our eyes get trained in a certain sort of filtering. Though they wander on everything but they see and register only a selective few. The knick knack seller at traffic lights or the dusty and hungry figures with stretched palms; numerous such encounters daily, too trivial to be even worth acknowledging. Many such nameless faceless children of lesser God infest the pavements of Plaza and try to attract our attention through their colorful wares.The intensity of our interaction with them is directly proportional to the gloss of the ware they sell. They still remain nameless faceless to us lest we lose our guard. Lest they contaminate our world with their uncouth ways..
I was trying to crack one such bargain when I suddenly realized my little one was not beside me. Momentary panic gripped as she was hardly only few days into toddling. I frantically turned around and started looking for that familiar face amongst the melee of strangers. Suddenly at a relatively dark corner beneath a shady tree, I found that face. A sigh of relief left me. But that was short lived as I got anxious of what I saw. She was Sitting comfortably on the dusty concrete with her legs crossed oblivious of the surrounding. Giving her company was a pale, sad faced kid about three years old and his mother. She was trying to pacify him with an oily piece of patty wrapped in an old newspaper. probably that's all she managed with her day's earning. My little one was absolutley comfortably sitting with them as if she found a long lost friend. She had even struck a conversation in her own language. She was demanding her share from that oily piece."How come you keep me away from this impromptu feast", She seemed to be saying! The lady innocently extended a morsel to her. I was aghast for a moment. Then I realised why they say, "since God can't be everywhere he created Mother.." But worldly sense prevailed and I indicated her against it. I asked her not the disturb the kids and watched from a distance. The two laughing and giggling to their hearts content.The bonding was spontaneous and absolute. The urchin on the pavement had forgotten his hunger. Mine had forgotten she was away from her mother for long!
The two would grow up into two different worlds which would probably never meet. However for the moment I was witnessing one of the purest human relationships Almightly could have thought of...pure, uninhibited and spontaneous. I was meeting God....
