The little boy wouldn't have been a day over 8. He had a round face, with equally round eyes and hair that fell all around the round stopping just short of the eyes. He was uniformly dirty, a common situation when you're from one of those million families all over India where the one pot of water a day is better used for drinking than other unimportant tasks like bathing. His T-shirt had once been a light cream in colour, but now it was closer to brown. The brown was in patches though, unlike the uniformity of the dirt on his body. Possibly an effect of the previous day's rain which had washed down the stains, leaving areas of different shades of brown over the shirt. He had stepped out of his house, if it could be called that, in search of his mother. His little round eyes spotted her in the shop across the street, and like all kids his age who spot their mother after a search, started running towards her without a care in the world.
The Toyota Innova on that street clearly did not belong there. It was one of the automobile industry's greatest coups to convince Indians that there was such a thing as a city-friendly SUV. And SUV is not city-friendly. It is most certainly not side-lane, cross-street or gully-friendly. However, these are the most common connecting sections that are found in India, where first the houses are built and the remaining area is called the road. As a result of all these reasons, the Innova on this little street was finding the transit very difficult indeed. Hence, when the driver saw a sudden stretch of nothingness open up in front of him, he gunned the engine. And if there's one thing an SUV can do, it is accelerate. The car gathered speed, the driver intent on making up the most ground in the least time. Totally oblivious to the little boy running towards his mother.
The boy heard the roar of the engine too late. There was nothing he could do except turn away and cover his face instinctively with his hands, the commonest reaction when a human is face with any kind of threat. The car also had no option of slowing down, and even if it did, it didn't look likely the driver would take it. In a moment of blurring motion, the car dropped its left tires, both front and rear into the puddle left by the previous night's rains, covering the little boy in a mixture of water and mud, and sped on.
The boy looked up after the car passed, and gingerly ran his hands over his face, collecting all the mud and grime left there by the Innova. After satisfying himself that his face was clean, he rubbed both his hands straight down the middle of his shirt, to remove from his hand what he had removed from his face. Thus completing the transfer of the mud from his face to somewhere it would be less noticeable, the boy merrily ran on towards his mother and jumped into her arm.
After all, it was only one more patch of brown in an already soiled shirt.
The Toyota Innova on that street clearly did not belong there. It was one of the automobile industry's greatest coups to convince Indians that there was such a thing as a city-friendly SUV. And SUV is not city-friendly. It is most certainly not side-lane, cross-street or gully-friendly. However, these are the most common connecting sections that are found in India, where first the houses are built and the remaining area is called the road. As a result of all these reasons, the Innova on this little street was finding the transit very difficult indeed. Hence, when the driver saw a sudden stretch of nothingness open up in front of him, he gunned the engine. And if there's one thing an SUV can do, it is accelerate. The car gathered speed, the driver intent on making up the most ground in the least time. Totally oblivious to the little boy running towards his mother.
The boy heard the roar of the engine too late. There was nothing he could do except turn away and cover his face instinctively with his hands, the commonest reaction when a human is face with any kind of threat. The car also had no option of slowing down, and even if it did, it didn't look likely the driver would take it. In a moment of blurring motion, the car dropped its left tires, both front and rear into the puddle left by the previous night's rains, covering the little boy in a mixture of water and mud, and sped on.
The boy looked up after the car passed, and gingerly ran his hands over his face, collecting all the mud and grime left there by the Innova. After satisfying himself that his face was clean, he rubbed both his hands straight down the middle of his shirt, to remove from his hand what he had removed from his face. Thus completing the transfer of the mud from his face to somewhere it would be less noticeable, the boy merrily ran on towards his mother and jumped into her arm.
After all, it was only one more patch of brown in an already soiled shirt.
3 comments:
Thank god you didn't kill off the protagonist :)
Yeah, even I was expecting that to happen... :)
That was the idea of the buildup :)
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