An Encounter with a Girl

Hmm... OK, before you start getting ideas, here is the disclaimer: This is not about my meeting with some hot-chick female who swooned my heart with her beauty, but about a girl who moved my heart and set me thinking by her sheer nonchalance and attitude. I met this girl on my train journey to my home from Chennai. I generally prefer to travel second class on trains because only here you get to see the real India, and not the "oh-so-know-it-everything" people whom i meet when sometimes i travel in AC.
My journey was going on as a two day journey on a "express" train should go. The train stopped at every station that passed, the atmosphere was all hot and humid. People were bored as the usual exchange of pleasantries were done and nobody wanted to further know what the person sitting in front of him did for living, or what were his views on performance of Indian cricket team, the corruption of politicians, etc.
At this point of time two kids, a boy and a girl, appear in the train compartment. Some energy was infused among the passengers. People rose from their slumber wondering what this kids were up to. The boy with a frail body seemed to be around 12-13 yrs old and was carrying two pieces of asbestos in his hand, making sounds with it to attract the attention of the people around. The girl, roughly around eight to ten years old, was dressed in a dirty frock and was carrying two iron rings with her. With the starting of the boys "music" from the asbestos plates, she started passing her body through the rings in all possible manners. She would pass the ring through her head, pass her hand through it, fold up her legs and again pass it through the ring. She did all this and many other myriad steps while almost running through the compartment. That it was possible for a human body to pass through those small rings,, of the size of basketballs, was just unimaginable for me. But this girl's body slithered through them as if they were meant to perform such acrobatics.
Once she was done through the whole compartment, she came back to the passengers asking for money. But here is what was unique about this girl. She didn't ask for money like a beggar, she wanted it from them as if it was her right. And if someone didn't give her any money, she would look him with such strange questioning eyes, asking, "What's wrong with you? Why are you not giving me money." It didn't seem to her that she is doing anything wrong by asking for money, no shame, no sense of guilt. It was a perfectly fair way of getting means of survival from a society which was unable to provide her one. At an age, when she should be studying in schools and playing with the dolls, this society has forced her to earn money from passengers traveling in the train, so whats there to be shameful about.

But I don't think she thinks about all this. She doesn't know what the society was supposed to provide her, what should have been her legitimate right just by virtue of being born as a human. This is the life she was taught to live. Show her performance to the passengers in train and get money from them. That is how you survive. So, whenever a person refuses to pay up, it looks unnatural to her. As if the person in front isn't fulfilling his part of the deal.

Those questioning eyes.... those eyes which don't beg but demand, will we ever be able to answer them? Will we ever be able to look back straight at them and say, "Look girl, you don't need to do this anymore. Go back home. There will be some food for you to eat. Then you can go to school and learn stuff and play with your friends."

Isn't that what each and every child in India deserves?