I hate the beggar babies outside school. There are two sets of them, one near the BITM bus-stop corner, and the other set lives next to the mosque, close to the place which sells all that junk-food. They're pretty horrible, these children. Every time you buy some street-food and savour it on the way back from School, (before you're forced to share it with the people in the carpool), they'll holler at you while hanging from the metal bits of the bus-stop railing, and they'll turn their eyelids upside down until your entire appetite disappears, and you're forced to relinquish your food to them. Friggin' beggars. I hate the ones at the bus-stop.
Not as much as I hate the ones around the mosque. This one time, some of us were eating ice-cream outside the gate after one of the papers and a whole bunch of them descended and went, "Ey, Ey, Ey, Ami-o achskrem khabo! (x N, N=ad nauseam.) (Translation: "Ey, Ey, Even I want to eat ice-cream".) Then they circled us and sang that. Then the tiniest one tried to grab the ice-cream. A little while later (after we came out of hiding), we saw that the tiniest one had been abandoned by the rest. Although it looked kind of happy, because it was sitting on the goat that the people from the mosque had tied to the railing. (This was before Bakri-Id.)
So, anyway, I hate the beggar babies outside the School. Very uncouth.
But, this post is not about them. This post is about the only beggar babies I like. Near my house, there is a flower-store run by this oldish lady, and she sells really old and bad flowers, but people still buy flowers from her store for some reason. And near her store, on the pavement, there are these two little children who play and squeal all the time. I just assumed that they were part of the Indian-Suburb scenery. Not that I live the suburbs.(Tollygunge is hardly the suburbs, but still, it's sort of quiet-ish on the street where I live.)
Then this one morning, I was waiting at the gate for my carpool to arrive, (It's always late.), and then I noticed the two beggar babies (one of them is five, and the other is two), skipping along the street barefoot, going, "Lalalalalalalalalaaaaaa!!". And since they spoke in my language of the Lalala, I grinned at them, and they grinned back. My mum, (who'd been watching from the balcony above all this while, the sneak) later told me their story. It's sort of sad, but it has a happy ending.
The two beggar babies are the grand-daughters of the old lady who sells bad flowers. The flower-lady's son was married to the mother of the beggar-babies, but then he died (well, that's what they presume), and then, their mother ran away and abandoned them. So, their grandmother adopted them (unofficially, duh), and now they live with her. They even go to school because some extremely nice rich guy in the neighbourhood has been financing their pre-school education. On days when they have no school, the two beggar babies (they are both girls), help their grandmother by skipping along to every house in the neighbourhood within walking distance and deliver flowers. I'm assuming the only reason the old lady still has customers is because her little delivery-girls are as cute as hell. They always run barefoot on the street, despite the fact that they both own shoes. They are friends with every stray dog in the locality, and all the dogs do their bit to protect them in the mornings, when the deliver the flowers. There's always a stray dog that accompanies them when they walk along, and every time a vehicle comes by, the dog nudges them to the side. They thank the dog by trying to climb over it, but I really don't think that the dog minds it. I have a feeling it likes it.
The two-year-old tries to even ride bareback on the dog on the return journey, but that is something even the dog won't put up with.
So that's their story. Two abandoned little girls who are growing up as neighbourhood children.
Sometimes, all it takes to change the world is a random act of compassion. (I didn't make that up, it's a quote from Evan Almighty.)
Also, in completely unrelated (well, not really) news, I've finally done a little more artwork. I did this on one sheet of paper, but I don't have a scanner, so I had to take a picture of them, which was essentially pretty sub-standard, so I cropped and made them separate images. I know the signature is not very necessary, but I'm like that, so there.
I was actually trying to draw the beggar babies, but they look nothing like this, but it's still quite good, so I'm going to put it up. You can critique the art, but be nice. I'm not normally this artsy.
Listening to -
Apocalypse Now - Muse (They amaze me with every song. Except Starlight, which was a piece of bullshit - Well, it's not that great, Pff.)
Schrei - Tokio Hotel (Stuck in my head. And it's German, and the only part I can sing is "Nein nein nein nein, Schreeeeeeeiiiii!")
Whipping - Pearl Jam (Bloody awesome bass riff.)
Matinee - Franz Ferdinand (It's never complete without a seductive song by FF, now is it?)
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Damned typos.
Oh, and Starlight is NOT a piece of bullshit. I like it. Especially the synthesizer arpeggios during the chorus. But yeah, don't be dissin' on Starlight.
@What's in a Name,
Um, it's the mosque near MHS. It's very tiny, and white and green. Tipu Sultan mosque is Anwar Shah Road area, yes? (I'm a spatial spaz and this could be entirely wrong. :P)
HOWEVER.
Starlight creates great atmosphere, and is feel-good. When a song's like that, I prefer enjoying it instead of dissecting it.
And OMG, YAY. :D