The Fundamental Element

The other day, I was travelling by a city bus and as usual and as expected, the traffic was too much of a headache. I know, complaining about traffic are clichéd these days, but one just can’t stop complaining specially if you are running late and you are caught up in the nightmare you least expected. I, generally, do not dislike being stuck in a traffic in the rush hours but I do find it a little inconvenient if it tends to become the reason for me being late (you see, I hate being late). In that particular day, the day I am talking about, I had to reach a place in an hour’s time so that I can be there 10 minutes prior to the time appointed. It usually takes some 30-35 minutes from my place to reach the place I was heading for (plus some 25-30 minutes were obviously the buffer time allowed for traffic rush). This is a story during the halt of the bus I was in, on that day, in a traffic signal; and it’s not exactly a story.

I was sitting in the bus and everything was pretty normal. There was nothing unusual in that transit till the bus stopped in a traffic signal. Well, that was exactly not in the signal, we were some 500 meters away from the signal, stuck in the traffic. I saw two kids playing by the roadside. It seemed that they had devised their own game and they were on it. Covered in soil and dirt from head to toe, it was rather difficult to distinguish their faces clearly. Their clothes were tattered but it seemed they hardly bothered about it. I did not understand the language they spoke, so I didn’t really know what they were conversing. As they were playing, a kid younger than these two came out from a frayed tent which was laid nearby. I think, this little one was perhaps young enough to speak. He wanted to play with his two siblings (perhaps) but I guess the older kids were finding it a bit difficult to accommodate the younger one into their team. In this fiasco, a girl of around 12 came out and handed over something in a leaf to one of the older kids. Whatever it was, it was food that was not enough in quantity for one kid. The two older kids settled down by the side of the road, placed the leaf in between them and divided that small portion into two and started eating. The little kid, who was staring at the two of his siblings, came crawling to them and continued staring at them. These three kids were conversing something which obviously I couldn’t understand. After some moments I witnessed something that is a very natural scenario in our country but made a kind of impact on me that I can never spell in words. The older kids shared their already small portion of lunch with their younger sibling, making the portions even smaller. The three kids shared the leaf of meal they had. The older kids even helped the young one with the food as he was finding it a bit difficult to eat on his own. That was it when the traffic cleared and the bus I was in moved ahead.

The kind of emotion that was spreading among these three kids was something worth witnessing. It might sound simple and very general but that emotion can be felt only by being in that moment. I felt a very strong emotion that left me spellbound and I couldn’t explain myself what I was feeling at that moment. At a time, when we don’t give food a thought as in a necessity, it still is. Most of us are too busy with other important matters and food has become a very trivial part of our lives. And whenever we actually talk about it, it is the luxury part of it that comes through. But for some, food is the only thing they can think of, because they have a life to sustain and for that, they have to hard earn the food. In my graduation days, I once saw a family of four eating out rice out of a small thrown away polythene bag. The rice was thrown away in that poly bag and most of it lay spread on the dirty, dusty road. But the family was eating the rice with so much ecstasy, as if it’s the only thing they dream of. Sad, but true. This is the face we all try hiding and most of the times ignore the very sight of it. These people struggle all through their lives just to sustain the life they have got. They do not want much from life, in fact they do not dream of getting anything else. The only thing that bothers them is their very survival. It’s the most fundamental element, sometimes taken as a luxury,  and sometimes the core of very existence.

Copyright © One Life To Live. All Rights Reserved.