My mother asked me if I wanted to accompany Dhani Ram, our beloved sahayak, (I cringe to think we called them ‘orderlies’ those days—my father was in the Army) to my elder sister Geetha’s school to deliver her lunch box. I said yes.
You see, my sister would always bring friends home and one of her friends was Kamala, a doe-eyed, raven haired girl with a sweet smile. She was always graceful in her white half-sari and light-blue pavadai. She would turn and the world would whirr as well. All this when I was at the tender age of six!
And so there I was accompanying Dhani Ram who carried me on his shoulders when I was unable to keep up with his long strides. Once we had reached the school, I was alone for a while in the playground. At that moment of being alone, the shy, continually overwhelmed-with-the-world child saw Kamala, standing in the playground.
The background, the foreground, any movement around her, went out of focus. Kamala alone stood, luminous. She looked up and her eyes fell on me. I thought she would see through me and walk on. Instead, her eyes broke into a smile. She raised her right hand and twiddled her long, graceful fingers, waving to me. I rose a few feet in the air, my feelings of insignificance disappeared. Momentarily.
I am reminded of that incident whenever I see a little girl or boy. And I raise my palm, smile a genuine, heartfelt smile, and twiddle my fingers acknowledging their presence. Their smiles in return always linger warmly. The other day, while driving back from the gym, two boys in school uniforms were going home with their father on their scooter. We had stopped at a red light and the younger boy, sitting in the middle, saw me. Our eyes met. I smiled and I did the ‘Kamala’ manoeuvre. The boy smiled.
Did Kamala have parents who extended protective arms shielding her from the rain of arrows that this world throws at us? Does she remember a little boy she waved to in that playground, or did she make that gesture to every little boy and girl she saw? Did she have some good soul wave to her when she was but a shy child? Should I be thanking that soul, instead of Kamala for the legacy she has left in my heart?
Would I have cared to embrace pockets of humanity when small gestures such as hers are made? Or would I have taken such gestures for granted? That simple Kamala manoeuvre left a legacy in my heart of wanting to perk up every child I see. After all, they may well turn out to be as grateful as I am to someone who twiddled her fingers at a mere six-year-old.