In a world of magnets and miracles

The crowd was in frenzy. Each one wanted to pronounce the sentence. After all, she was a
pickpocket; she had committed a crime usually awarded with an amputation penalty in some
countries. Why should it be any different here?

The train crawled into the station. The crowd had managed to get a TTE to keep the
proceedings going. She looked all of eight. As she was whisked away, tears streaking
her tiny grimy face, she caught my eye, sight mixed with terror and helplessness, and for
some reason, incredulity. In our country, as soon as we are born, we are taught the value of
obedience, obedience to our parents and elders. She too had done the same. Had she not seen
how the passengers looked at their offspring with pride as they conducted themselves in a
decent manner, or, in a manner as the parents approved? She too, had learnt from her parents,
and, in fact, had learnt the trade successfully in a short period of time. She recollected
the ‘Shabaashi’ she was awarded when she pulled the wallet out during the practice session.
Then why had she been thrashed, her parents threatened at knife point, and her prize taken
away from her? The questions, the confusion, the clash of the ideologies, it was evident on
her face.

Suddenly she felt a hand on her shoulder, a reassuring hand, she looked up to see her mother
give a curt nod as to say, “Just keep going, it is all arranged.” What was arranged? As far as
she knew, they were going to the place where her father had disappeared four months ago.
Her mother had even stopped applying vermillion on her forehead, in reverence of the dead.
Somewhere, in her heart, she felt she would meet her father; perhaps her mother would start
wearing the tattered, but colourful saris again. Or, she thought with a shiver, they would take
her mother away this time, and leave her with her infant brother. As these doubts assailed her,
she let herself be pulled away, her immediate future uncertain, just like the next meal of the
day.