By: Rajbir Deswal

We met him in Mcleod Ganj. In the main market. Close to the Namgyal Monastery. By the side of momos vending stall. He was wearing branded ankle boots. Dark, cow-boyish hued. Loosely laced. Worn out. His T-shirt was also branded. Red. Torn. Leftover. With golden image of a fist. With power flowing on all sides in the form of arrows.

In between the boots and T-shirt, he wore nothing. He showed his manhood. Starkly. Unmindfully. Fully. His hands clasped at his back. His eyes roved in all directions.

He could barely balance himself. His age? A little more than a year. His hands flew reflexively for a grab. Money. Eatables. Anything. Even a whack or a push. A shoo! Or a shoot. Not that his photo might make to the front page. But because he liked the flash. He was a child too. Besides being a thoroughbred beggar.
Did he have his polio drops on time? Did he have his daily fill of belly? Will he go to the kindergarten? Will he have games and fun? Will he find his mother’s lap, when the thunderstorm will scare him? Well, I don’t really think so.

His father was selling gas balloons there. His mother had lac bangles spread on a sheet for sale. He was interested neither in the balloons, nor the bangles. He knew his job and performed it well. And at his age. Begging.

A couple came out of the monastery discussing 14th Dalai Lama’s name being Tenzin Gyatso. The woman looked at him with surprise. She bought herself a plate of momos. She partook of two, out of a set of four.

She was about to throw the rest. Our child-hero’s little hands went up in the air. His eyes met those of the woman. From the bin, she generously swifted the dump into his little waiting hands.
He accommodated the throw. Secured it like a good catcher. Didn’t stop to show obligation to the woman. With the momos firmly in his grip, he rushed to his mother. To let her marvel at his gain.
His joy was that of champion. A victor. A knight. His eyes were gleaming. Clutching momos in his joined palms, he cleaned his flowing nose with the back of his forearm.

His mother smiled at him fulsomely. His milk teeth landed on the momos to make some impact there. He licked the white peel. Made some headway. Reached upto the boiled and spiced vegetables inside. Ate up. Water flowed from his eyes. But he was happy. With a loud burp he sat almost as if on his haunches.

He doesn’t need what you can spare. He can make do with your leftovers. Till the time you give him a bowl, he may be happy. It’s possible that he may run into a worse weather like witnessing crime, or violence, or hatred.

But the moment he will have hunger eating at his entrails, he will turn to all that is uncivil. And then, maybe, he hits the jackpot. All my Oscars are for him. For he is the child or our making.
And who knows some twenty years from now, he sits on the hot seat to answer a scion of the Bachhans, the last question for one billion rupees, on Dalai Lama’s real name! I and my wife would also be invited at the Oscars then, for we were the ones who came out of the monastery, to give ‘the leftover billionaire’ his cue.

Whoever said, “It takes the whole village to raise a child!”
Want to see him...well he is here...
The Tribune version: http://www.tribuneindia.com/2009/20090509/edit.htm#5