SUNSHINE
Rodali. One of the hundreds of kids in G.B Road, the daughter of a sex worker. A cute, little creature, she
has a loud, commanding voice. “Ma’amji”, she says, “yaha hum khel rahe hain, darwaza
band kar denge, aap nahin kholna”. My weak-willed, non-assertive self agrees reluctantly,
even though I have work in that very room. She takes confident strides to the
other room, ordering the other 4-5-year-olds, sometimes even pushing them forward. They take out some mats from a drawer and go into the other room to play “ghar, ghar’.
Rodali, everyone’s
darling at school. She used to hop from lap to lap, stealing kisses, until
another cute kid from the same ‘kotha’(room) got enrolled, and her ‘popularity’
somewhat decreased. But she isn’t jealous, no she isn’t. Instead, she holds the
other kid by the hand, and now they both demand to be swung in circles by all
the adults there. Her teacher convinces her to get out of the room and put
the mats back. She sits down with three other boys and her teacher, and starts practicing
her ‘A B C D’s and ‘1+1’s. “Ma’amji, bore ho rahi hoon, kuch khelte hain”, she
utters after a mere 5 minutes. That’s her attention span. I hear her from the other
end of the room, and look up from my book. She does not notice me; she is busy painting
now. She makes a flower, or a kite, and signs ‘Rodali’ in her messy hand. The kids
then start competing about whose pictures would go up on the board on the wall.
Wide eyes, brimming with excitement, they watch as the teacher pins all of them
to the board, one atop another.
Rodali is one
of the most expressive kids I’ve ever, ever met. A Bollywood freak, she is like
one of those 6-year-olds who appear in the dancing/acting reality shows, full
of energy and chatter, dancing to the blatantly objectifying item songs,
without an idea of what they imply. The only difference, her family is not conventional.
She does not have the means to get into such a show, nor does her mother have
the courage to put her out in public. She can imitate almost every facial
expression of almost every actor. The kids dance together, and she is a delight
to watch. Whenever she does not behave, her elder brother threatens to take her
home, and her lips curl into a sneer; she stomps her foot and walks away, hands
folded to her chest – she is that dramatic. My interactions with her is limited
to the occasional ‘hi’, a head-pat, and her coming to me to complain. She sometimes
comes to hide behind me to escape the Lego-projectiles being hurled by one
of the kids. That very moment, a strange sense of maternal protectiveness overpowers
me - I’d fight against any force in this world for her. I hold her tightly, shooting
a menacing stare at the kids. They move away eventually. She unclasps my hand and walks away nonchalantly, without even a trace of smile
at me. I crave for some sort of validation – a small gesture, even a smile
would do. Please acknowledge me? I sit down beside her at times, trying to
engage her in a conversation, but she is not interested. She needs to go play;
the other kids are waiting.
Some days,
when I stay back at school long enough, I get to drop her home. She is not
allowed to walk back alone, her house a mere 200 metres from school. She clasps
my hand tight as we walk past the crowd of men, only men. Some of them stare,
the stares get disgusting progressively. Even a 6-year-old like her does not escape the
filthy, sexualizing stares of men, some old enough to be her grandpa. I loathe thinking
about what they would do to these little girls in the absence of adults. We climb
the stairs and I have to make sure she reaches her mother’s or any of these
ladies’ arms, and no-one else.
Some days I
get to pick her up for school. As I sit on one of those benches, characteristic
of every brothel in the road, I see her sitting in a corner, playing with a
doll. She is not her energetic self, there is a strange timidness in her. I do
not get to see this side of her personality often. She is more obedient, more ‘domesticated’.
Her mother dresses her up sometimes. Her braided pigtails and untied and her
hair is let loose. She wears a dress, not her worn-out trousers and top. She has
a hint of blush in her cheeks, and her eyelids are glittery. She even wears
bangles that day! She looks pretty, but there is no trace of mischief in her
eyes. She sits obediently by her mother’s side. As I get up, she takes her
small school-bag and holds my hands. I feel validated. I take it as a sign of
affection, of some sort of acknowledgement. However insignificant it may be, it
still fills up my heart. As we climb down the stairs, the sunshine in my heart
is clouded by the dark stares of the men, again. I let out a helpless sigh, and
her grasp becomes tighter. We walk back to school, and once she lands in the familiar
space, her docile personality disappears. She becomes the 'Rodali' in the school,
lighting up the place with her playfulness, mischief and pandemonium.
[None of the names used here are real.]
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