Epiphanies At The Traffic Signal

It was three o’clock in the afternoon and the midsummer heat was unbearable. The air conditioner in the car was giving us trouble yet again. The traffic signal at that junction was notorious for its perennial jams.

Despite keeping the car windows open, I was sweating profusely in the back seat. Beads of perspiration had surfaced on my forehead, cheeks, and the bridge of my nose, and started running in small rivulets down my face until the front of my top had become sodden.

As if to add insult to injury, the light had turned red for the third time. To everyone, this meant to stop, but to him, it seemed to mean go.

“Here comes the beggar boy. Roll up the window, Rohan,” I yelled.

Rohan who was sitting next to me on the back seat, rolled up the window on his side, leaving a slight gap on top.

He would have been about seven years old. His dark skin was smeared with layers of grime. The pitch-black hair on his head was a wild and tangled mop desperately in need of a haircut. He wore a dark blue T-shirt that was way too big and hung loose on his tiny, malnourished frame. The same went for his khaki shorts, which were just barely held in place by a tattered belt.

He pulled out a red plastic whistle from the pouch that hung from his shoulder and blew it next to Rohan’s window. A shrill, irritating sound rent the air; he banged on the window, holding up two fingers to signal that the whistle cost two rupees.

Rohan turned to me with expectant eyes. Already on edge from the heat, honking, and exhaust, I wasn’t feeling at all accommodating. 

“No!” I snapped.

Rohan turned to the window with a disappointed expression. 

Their eyes met. 

At the same level!

The beggar boy reached up to the crack at the top of the window and dropped a green whistle into Rohan’s lap. He smiled at Rohan and gestured for him to take it.

Both boys blew on their whistles. This time, the sound was even louder and my hands shot up to cover my ears. Rohan put his right hand against the glass; the boy placed his palm over Rohan’s from the other side.

It seemed like a moment of perfect connection as they smiled at each other from either side of the barrier and “high fived”. It was a glimpse into a utopian world where, all things being the same, they’d just be two little boys with no major difference between them, and no panel of glass signifying the insurmountable divide between their worlds. 

Feeling ashamed of myself, as I started frantically fiddling with my bag to take out the change to pay the boy for the whistle, the signal turned green and our car lurched forward, breaking the moment and leaving the beggar boy and his world behind. But the small, sweaty handprint on the window glass, and the realization that only circumstances made us different, traveled with us.