Street Facts

The streets were getting ready for the upcoming Independence Day Parade. It meant lots of traffic detours till a week after fifteenth. Local passenger buses were especially not allowed along the route of parade and tableaux. 

Shreeja had to get down at PG hospital stoppage, instead of her usual stoppage at Park Street. The latter used to be within walking distance from her office at Bishwaniketan building. The former was not too far either. She decided to walk; hence, crossed the roads, then kept walking along western boundary of Rabindrasadan, on footpaths. After ten feet of walk she, almost, stumbled upon a crawling child. 

Without any thought, Shreeja picked up the baby. It was a boy. He was cooing. Looking at the curious round eyes, saliva smudged chin, Shreeja was touched by the natural joy of holding a baby. Before her feelings could even sink in, the baby pulled her glasses by the temples. She burst into laughter.

The baby was disappointed. He could not yank the glasses from Shreeja's ears and nose and lick to taste.

Then he concentrated on the pendant on Shreeja's necklace. He tried to pull it up, holding in his tiny left palm, right arm being around Shreeja's neck. The length of the necklace was insufficient for his purpose. So, he ducked down a little bit to put the pendant into his mouth and get a taste of the bright, pink and green object. Shreeja laughed louder. 

One of the two women lying down, and probably sleeping on the footpath, suddenly sprang to her feet and charged at Shreeja, "What are you doing with the baby?"

Shreeja sensed the tension. She had been in a profession involving street encounters for nearly a decade. She had handled street junkies, random rapists, gang bangers on some of the most troubled corners of the city. She was accustomed to street arrogance and atrocities.

Since she was neither law enforcement nor rival street business, she pretended to be affable. She replied with a smile, "He was crawling towards the traffic. I was about to step on him. Somehow he managed to catch my attention. Now we're getting acquainted…."

The woman sighed, seemed relieved. She confessed, "I was not supposed to fall asleep. But the sultry weather…, slow business… Thanks for catching the baby. Otherwise they would have charged me with five hundred rupees for losing the child …"

Shreeja's senses were shaken. Her jaws dropped. She considered herself a veteran of street affairs. She knew that no beggar happened just to be a beggar, but a drug peddler or gang informer. She never touched live mother and child sculptures on the streets, though. They seemed too sacred, a manifestation of subaltern haplessness. She could not help but utter, "Oh! He's not your son….. You're not his mother…."

The woman further clarified, "Nope. This' a begging fixture from dozens kept at my employer's warehouse. Today I's asked to hold this baby and beg at this corner of the street. Yesterday, I's cleaning pots for a street food vendor. I asked today for a street food vending spot for myself. So, they asked me to prove my salesmanship through begging by paying them three hundred rupees daily, by the end of business day. If I'm satisfied by the end of the week about what I make without complaining about their share, then they may give me a street vending spot."

Shreeja's journalistic instinct aroused. She asked with a clever smile, "By yesterday, you didn't mean exactly the day before today?"

The woman nodded affirmatively. Shreeja asked again, "How long have you been working in this spot as a beggar?"

The woman's face was a mix of sadness and satisfaction. She shared with reservation, "Months. Before you ask anything further, I'm telling you I'm making enough for myself."

Now Shreeja frowned, "Yet your employer is not giving you a street vending spot…."

The woman confided, "What I've heard is that my employer thinks I'm a liar since I've not complained of what I make. Or, I'm an informer to competitions or the police."

Shreeja reflected sympathetically, "It happens in every job. Disgruntled employees chatter a lot about their mistreatment in the hands of peers, superiors, even if, issues were that these employees never complain…"

The woman smiled mischievously, "Oh. you naughty woman.. You meant that I'm complaining. Then let me tell you about misogyny in our profession. All street food vending spots are assigned only to men. Women are employed as cleaners. Not even as servers. Though we women are eternal household cooks and bookkeepers."

Shreeja did not pretend but teased directly this time, "And your husband beats you up every day, snatches your money, drinks hooch and doesn't care about feeding the children, not to mention raising them by engaging them in learning a trade or sending them to public schools…"

The woman took a stance of adding some more spice, "Until he left us for my satin. A homewrecker, bitch."

Shreeja handed the boy to the woman. Then she fished out a hundred rupees bill and another fifty rupees bill from purse. She handed the woman the fifty rupees and tucked the other bill in the fists of the boy.

The woman mentioned, "Thanks. But before you go you must know that my husband is a loving person. He used to be a hawker on local trains to Lakshmikantapur. Until he lost both his legs by falling from a moving train. He supports our children by sewing comforters from rags, making paper bags, and other odd jobs that do not need legs to move. I could have taken up his job at local trains. But our children were scared. My son goes to school and learns tailoring at a neighborhood shop. Daughter is attending school and learning by working at a beauty parlor."

Shreeja let a few moments pass before she reacted, "Truth?"

The women seemed crafty, "Maybe."

Shreeja handed her another hundred rupees bill and asked, "Give me the fifty back."

The woman did and reflected bitterness, "Thanks. But no thanks."

Shreeja bargained, "You can keep the fifty if we, you, the baby and me can have a selfie."

The woman agreed.

While walking towards her office, Shreeja felt an urgent need to smoke. She was pacing fast, suffocated by the shock that a child was worthy of only five hundred rupees.