From the Eyes of Innocence

by Uzma Bano
(Jamshedpur, India)

The rattling noise of the train was the only sound I could hear sitting on the window seat.I was a frequent passenger who lived every moment of the journey through her eyes. While observing the world outside, I forgot that the world inside was also worth noticing. Outside was full of freshness, tranquility, and motion, a view exclusively seen during a train journey.

After feasting my eyes with the beauty of lush green pastures, I turned inside to face the awkward reality of life.Now, the calls of chai-wallas, pantry car guys and hawkers with cheap stuff became prominent.The transition between the sounds of the two worlds was like a leap through eternity.I saw a group of five boys, with an average age of 20 years sitting around me. Their old attires and unkempt hairs spoke their state of life. Listening to their conversations, I sketched their purpose of journey to Mumbai, where they earned their living by working in a cloth mill. An age, when they could have enjoyed life and thought about career objectives, was spend in earning a living for their family.This made me think about what I was doing for my dear ones. My self-introspection was intercepted by a samosa walla's sudden appearance.The youngest of the boys stopped him and asked the price. It was three samosas for twenty rupees, quite cheap in my perspective.But the boy took out his torn wallet and found only a ten rupee note.The samosa walla went forward without addressing any bargain.

That moment, I stared at the guy with eyes full of empathy and throat choked with the feeling of helplessness. I could feel his agony while he waited for some cheaper stuff to fill his pallet.The other boys were also eager to join him in the wait of something affordable.

My eyes could feel the insatiable urge of the sapiens, where some have everything in excess and some are struggling for their basic needs. I wanted to buy food for them but then I realized, how long can I help them if the heavens don’t permit. The train stopped at the station where I had to get down and move ahead towards another phase of my journey.

Moving ahead on the platform, I was constantly thinking of them and my inability to help them.I felt a hitch in my throat and stopped near the food stall to buy a bottle of drinking water. I took the bottle and hovered my hand inside my handbag to take out the wallet. My eyes were on the bottle and my hands were busy searching. Soon, I realized that my wallet was missing.That moment, I recapitulated every moment of the journey and realized that my wallet was stolen by those guys sitting beside me. Probably this would have happened when I was busy observing the scenic beauty outside which made me to take a short nap. Now, my opinion and sense of empathy for those boys began to disappear in the horizon of my loss. I moved ahead leaving behind the bottle of sanity.

The world has many colours it’s the way how we look at it. At first, I wanted to help them and now when they helped themselves with this small theft, I felt it to be unfair. The irony lies in the perspective of the observer while the eyes sense only the innocence.

***

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