Looking Down From My Window

The purple of the lavender always gives me hope, and it looked a little different since the first showers had poured down in our locality. A small town by size, the people here tend to recognize each other more often than not. I, for one, am a loner living a mile or two away from the buzz of the market. Usually spending my time writing, I relax by the side of my window, looking upon the limitless skies and a few children who pass by the road across.

For the past several days, I have noticed a girl who sells pens by the roadside—seen her carrying her bicycle with a bunch of pens in the carrier. I often catch her using a ruffle to tie her hair, walking up the hill with the same clothes every day.

Something strange happened though yesterday. She was trying to read a poster stuck on the wall and soon left with a dejected look. Maybe she doesn't know how to read properly. The irony is, for many like her who sell books or pens even, they don't often indulge in reading or writing for that matter!

I sat drinking my cappuccino and admiring the Lord for his fine rain. There she was again, her head looking toward the sky and murmuring something.

"Hey, Chhoti! Where are you headed?" I shouted.

"Memsahib, would you like a pen?" she said.

"That's not what I asked," I replied.

"It's about to get dark, Memsahib. I am in a rush to reach home. Tell me if you want a pen." She said.

There was something about her voice, damp in texture and tone. It was almost a pleading to say don't waste my time if you can't help me out here!

"I will have a couple of your pens. Come over to my house."

The girl smiled at me, sat on her bicycle, and headed towards the house.

I opened the door to an excited teenager at my doorstep holding two pens in her hand.

"That will be 20 rupees, memsahib." She said.

"There is your money. But tell me one thing, don't you use them- the pens?"

"What will I do with them?" She said.

Her laugh was unclear, with gushing clouds and thunder striking in the background.

"You can write anything you want! Express yourself, turn your thoughts and opinions into art."

I wasn't surprised, but the reality hurt me now that I was sure about her.

"Memsahib, I have to sell these pens so that Anil and I can have something to eat by each night. Things are tough as they are in the orphanage." She said.

Suddenly, the rain picked up, and it almost felt like a downpour!

"Chhoti, come inside, fast! Park the bicycle under the shed."

As fast as she could, Chhoti took her bicycle to the shed on the northwest corner of the entrance, and a bit shy to enter the house, she stood at the doorway staring across the road as if praying for the rain to stop.

"Why don't I teach you how to write?" I asked.

"But I don't think you have to." She replied.

"I want to, and I feel you do as well!" I said.

Chhoti smiled at me, nodding her head.

I took her inside and showed her my study. She started to flip through the books kept on the shelves and roamed around like a kid inside Disneyland, checking everything out.

"Will I be able to read all of this kept here? And maybe write a book of my own someday?" She asked.

Her question astounded me as to what the vision of the poor girl had been reduced to owing to the circumstances she had grown in. Everybody needs their help, and Chhoti seems like an ambitious kid. The rain had stopped, and she decided to leave to see her brother, but in reality, this was just the beginning of our journey.

A couple of lessons into the academic journey, Chhoti showed progress. It wasn't all study; we admired the beauty looking down from the window occasionally and then. What made it even better were the girl's explanations for nature's cycle and how she found it intriguing that, like the trees, we, as humans, were exposed to the various seasons for a reason. It was a journey we took every year, and how our actions that are influenced by nature should never dominate its existence. But what was happening was quite different indeed.

Making sense of chaos clarifies a lot of the latter, and improvement, in any case, is achieved through effort. Chhoti was putting in a lot of it, and all her hunger to learn made me happy, as well as her trying to be funny occasionally.

"Why is the sunflower always facing the Sun?" she asked.

"There is science behind it; I, too, don't fully understand," I said.

"Maybe they like the Sun and wait for it to rise. Can it be?"

I chuckled and nodded, "Perhaps!"

"Memsahib, why do we call a man a social animal?"

"Well, I guess we believe in interaction and need each other to express our thoughts and necessities," I said.

"But don't we need to give a thought about what we think? And do we even help each other that often?"

"What makes you say that?" I replied.

"The crowd at the railway station. They shrug me off most of the time."

"Then you should, too, shrug off these thoughts," I said.

Chhoti's smile was an indication enough that she'd probably understood what I meant.

I usually cooked in the evening, but with her around, it was a meal for two during the afternoon. It reminded me of how my mother used to cook for herself and me in my younger days. I miss dearly the curd rice made by her. It is something that I still hold close to my heart!

"How do you manage in the orphanage?" I asked.

"Time goes by. I have Anil and Sunita to help me there."

Chhoti was engrossed, flipping the pages of the book.

"I meant, how do you manage your curiosity and desire to learn something new?"

"Oh, that! I seldom read in the orphanage. There is work as it is. Old magazines discarded by the owner are all I get." She said.

"What sort of magazines are they?"

"Majorly related to business. I don't understand it, but I know it has something to do with money." She smiled.

I was smitten by her innocence and the fact that she wasn't off about it, business, that is.

"It is what many people do for a living to earn money. Even you, you sell pens for it." I added.

"Am I a businessman then?" She asked, her eyes wide open in surprise.

"You are a businesswoman, a young woman, after all, rather than a man."

Both of us instantly burst into laughter.

Gradually, I grew fond of Chhoti, and her presence made my house feel like home again. Sometimes she brought a couple of friends and Anil with her. Though Anil was least interested in improving his writing ability, he was a sucker for everything I made in the kitchen! I needed this as much as Chhoti did. To have someone around to talk to, and I could have discussed anything with her; she was smart enough to understand.

Three months had gone by, and I had trained Chhoti in every way I could have. Yes, it was time for school studies for her. I decided to pay for her tuition fee and took care of everything required. Being a guardian to a 14-year-old in a local school had its responsibilities. I had reminders for PTMs and was also present at the annual day! It was fun to relive everything from the other side of the curtain.

Chhoti still visits me whenever she can. The afternoons are back to cappuccino and the window again. Now when I look down upon the road across, I often notice her with her bicycle and her hair tied with a ruffle, only with a school bag tucked into the carrier instead of the pens.