My love for travel admires my writing about subjects that are born from nature. This story is
about a girl who is challenged since her natural birth and yet challenges all of humanity itself.
I first met while I was travelling by freeway to the village to my farmhouse near a river; I
urged to pee. Huge farmland of corn covered the ground as it touched my beige khaki pants
whenever I crossed the field to get to the tunnel across the end.
The tunnel is isolated, and as I enter, I slip down into the hole covered with hazes.
A beautiful small hut covered with wild roses and sunflowers from I stand. I followed the
sunshine and the roses I saw above. The muddy walls have soft cushioning of wall plants,
helping me ascent up.
“Who are you? Why are you snatching my plants?” a little girl with a scorn eyebrow pointed
at the fallen wall plants.
“oh sorry. I am wandering in search of pee.”
“The washroom was down. haven’t you peed downstairs?”
“oh… I did not know. Will you please take me back there?”
She pointed her tiny finger to the staircase made up of rotten trunks. And I wonder how on
earth I missed seeing the satirical stairs made up neatly by forgotten woods. I jumped into the
woods and went down again. Behind the curtain of roots, I find a hole with running water. I
peed in the running water and washed my hands in it too.
The little girl disappeared when I came back upstairs, and I could see my car across the field.
I searched for the girl, but as it was getting dark, I decided to go to the farmhouse.
While walking towards the car, I bumped into another little boy pulling my pants.
He is disabled with one hand but wants to play with me. I have four Bengali cats at home,
and I remember how much a kitten loved to play. I pulled up a little boy on my shoulders and
ran back to the field.
He held my ears with his chill palms and steered me into the center of the field where we saw
the sun setting under the corns. A mesmerizing view until it became dead dark with a new
moon in the sky.
“put him down!” the tiny girl returned and with a frown asked me to hurry back.
“common I don’t want to disturb the breeding snakes. Run now”
I followed her instructions and ran to the tiny hut in the tunnel.
“Is this your home?” I finally asked when I stared, at the beds made up of fresh cotton pads
and covered with rose petals and neem leaves.
She held my pinky finger and took me deeper into the tunnel where four other kids were
asleep on their tiny mud bed with a blanket of bushes and flowers handcrafted. Their mud
beds have hand-engraved sun, maize, corn leaves, river, moon and stars. It has blown my
mind with all the natural creativity.
“We are the abandoned ones. We love being together, and this is our home.” The girl replies
with pride.
Till then I noticed she had no ears on her left, and her right ear was in half form, the boy who
jumped on my shoulder had the single arm, other their sleeping was handicapped with their
facial structures too.
“We were barred in barren when we were born to survive on our own, and I believe humans
have killed a few of us without giving a chance to stay and prove why we are born this way.”
The tiny five or perhaps six-year-old girl spoke to me.
“Why are you born this way?” I uttered almost instantly and then regretted to take back my
words.
“to bring love back to humanity. Come. It is getting darker outside; let me guide you to your
car.”
She showed me a secret passage to the other side of the road. I drove away promising to bring
back books and gifts for them, on which she did not get exited a bit. Yet, another child is too
excited to see me go on the shoulder climbing again. He wished me to stay, but there were
not enough beds that night. Hence, I left.
This day was our first meeting. I remember each bit of moment with her.
Then after, I start visiting her messy dollhouse in the mid of the field every day. Gradually,
my work starts becoming a burden, and I became procrastinator. Yet again, whenever I spent
time with those fairy children, I forgot all about work. There came a time when I needed to
visit the city for two weeks. Winter was approaching; hence I offered them the keys to my
farmhouse and gifted each of them my jackets and black boots to cover their little feet.
The girl refused to stay at the farmhouse but later I convinced them somehow to keep for at
least two weeks. I left my caretaker with handsome money to take care of their well-being.
I interviewed the mountaineer for my recent subject, and one statement brought me back to
wisdom; as he said: “Discovering a new path and above all risking my life to accomplish it is
a new revolution of living a life.”
Perhaps our ancestors were alive doing it, and gradually we forget the value of risk and begin
following the comfort. Risk shows us places, lets us meet people, and allows us to be
ourselves 100%. What else needed more to be alive than risk?
I gave overnight thought and left my work to take care of such isolated children as much as I
could. I telephoned my close friend in media who arranged the organization who could help
me in going forward with it. After the decision, I happily left for the farmhouse in peace.
No one is there as I reach—even no sight of the caretaker. The place looks disaster, perhaps
something terrible must have happened. Fortunately, my friend from the organisation arrived,
and we discussed to take coverage of this disaster in the media and report for the caretaker
and children being missing. Days passed away, and no one returned. There was no report on
missing children and caretaker anymore. I have already searched the cornfield but lost my
way back or forgotten the way to tiny house while I was in the city.
My desperation to find those children overlooked my diet and health conditions in the chilly
winters. I begin to become sick.
One day I fell asleep near the door of my house when caretaker woke me up. I am delighted
to see him. Immediately I asked, “where are those children?”
“which children sir? I am sorry, sir, perhaps I should have told you already. You gave me so
much money for taking care of a few children, but they never arrived and when I went to the
place you asked. There was no such hidden tunnel. I asked everyone in the town. I had
enough money to run away, so I did. I am sorry, sir.”
“I left them myself on the couch while I gave you money? What have you done to them?
Sell? For money??? I will punish you for what you did.”
I rushed somehow in my toddling steps and called my friend to come over with a constable. I
locked my caretaker in a room, so he did not run away this time.
I showered and ate breakfast with a reasonable hope of finding them. But, as I completed my
breakfast, everything went blank.
I opened my eyes in a hospital. My friend stood close to me with a constable. They informed
me that caretaker has somehow opened the lock and hit me on the head with a vase. The
police caught him. after asked why he returns to kill him, he denied the assumptions and said
he got scared of me, as I was trying to abduct him in some fantasy written story of a few
children.
No one believed me and children went missing forever. Instead, I returned to my work and
chose to write a novel on such unprivileged children. I named my book “Man in a little
pocket” because unlike child each man lives their life entirely in a pocket where he keeps the
money, fancy items and lives every day in their comfort; never bothering to look out for other
people, animals or nature. Those children real or fantasy taught me how to bring back the
love in the world. I continued writing and wrote “Little Her “every word dedicated to those
fifteen valuable, cherished days I spent with her and the children.
It was a sunny day I remember; I was passing by Mc Donald’s. I was alone riding a car and
the day was already going hectic that I had no time for my breakfast since morning. I thought
of buying a burger from Mc Donald’s. As I got down from the car, I saw little black boot foot
with scathes mark and firmness in its steps but a face holding real-world peace approaching
me. He was Sameer.
“I am thrilled to see you again,” Sameer said.
I felt a wind rushing over me, left me with goosebumps and threw back to the day I met him
for the very first time how he rode on my shoulders to see the sunset. It all was real. He
continued;
“Take these balloons. See, I have many varieties. Which balloons you want to purchase.” He
was a small kid with around 20 balloons in his only hand.
I jumped out of my car and hugged him. He replied,” Take these balloons…take these
balloons”.
He was not concerned with warm gestures I had instead was in his best effort to sell his
balloons. “I will take your balloons if you first tell me where are others and where were you
all these two years”. He smiled at me. I was mesmerised and felt the integrity world behold in
itself.
“We all are fine and misses you. Now, which balloon you will take.” He has the stuff which I
don’t require in my daily routine—each balloon with the popular animated hero. He
continues, “You like Doremon, see I have that one or you like Sinchan, or Pikachu, or angry
birds……………………….” He kept on showing all he had, and I was lost in his virtue how
a group of the kid could be so talented and firm with their thought that they refuse to give up
on the path they have chosen to bring revolution. These revolutionary kids are teasing us with
their each knowing smirk and us incapable of understanding their wisdom hidden in their
eyes. They are teaching us to love and us unable to feel.
“I will take all of the balloons you have. And also, take me to your place. I wish to meet you
guys.”
His happiness was now overwhelming and jumping on his feet. “you took all my balloons,
today is a great day. I earned a maximum of all the days.”
These words hold my heart and felt a puncture. Two hundred bucks only, that’s it, and it is a
massive sale for him. I had a total meal expense of 330 dollars. I could not swallow a single
bite then after. Nowhere, my eyes were wet and somehow controlled it from rolling out.
Immediately, I ordered him food, but he denied. “They are waiting for me to go home
together.”
“Okay, fine, come sit in the car. I will take you there.”
The ‘little her’ has grown a little and is standing opposite the roadside with deflated balloons
and a machine to inflate them.
“Hello!” I shrieked out from the window.
Before she could reply, Sameer says “She is very nice, daily she gets me ready and drop me
to school.” I was surprised if he goes to study then why he sells balloons, but after all, they
are living with us and need money to survive. I approached my girl, and the magic of miracle
in her eyes appeared as she stared back at me, bending her neck and smiling at me as I feel
the symphony of love; she knew she taught.