Who Knows?

He always catches my eye,
His shy smile, his half lies,
Hands in the back pocket of his well worn jeans,
Unkempt hair begging to be combed,
He looks up when I walk by,
I ask the same question and pat comes the reply,
School is at twelve,
I smile, he smiles back,
There’s great chemistry here,
Though, I wish I knew how to handle it,
I stand tongue-tied,
How to tell a little boy how I feel about him?

He was in a hurry today,
He bundled a dozen bananas and flashed the customary smile,
But his eyes strayed to a man nearby,
He held a cycle that had seen good days,
Dented and welded in places,
The black paint had come off,
Nevertheless, it had two wheels and peddles,
And my boy wanted it,
He haggled for a while aided by his colleague/uncle – the apple seller,
And they settled on a price,
How much?  I asked.
Seven hundred.
At this point his eyes dimmed a little,
That was a whole lot of money to spend on a cycle,
His bereaved mother and little sister could do without it,
Who needs a cycle? I have a thela-gadi (hand-cart) to push around,
I was struck by his sensitivity; it was far beyond his age,
I wondered, where did he find all that selflessness?

Need I mention that I haggled on his behalf and bought it anyway,
When I was twelve, all I had to do was ask and it was given unto me,
Just as it says in the Bible,
I doubt the child will ever go on to read the Bible,
His childhood will be spent by the road selling bananas,
And adulthood?
I don’t know, that seems bleak too,
His uncle, the apple-seller looks really old, like one leg in the grave old,
Well, today wasn’t one of those days we were going to mope,
Waseem rode the cycle and the bony hands of the apple-seller cheered,
Who knows what destiny has in store, the Sun rose in the morning,
And here’s the little guy with a cycle of his own!

Really, who knows?

Photo courtesy - The Song Of The Sufi Masroof