I saw her sitting in
the room, coiled up in a corner, while her mother wiped the floor of our house.
I was too hungry so I rushed to the kitchen, got myself some garlic bread with
jam and was about to get back into my room when I stopped.
She was a little girl,
barely nine years old. She must be hungry too. Thinking so, I got her a plate
full of bread slices with jam smeared on them. “Have it,” I pushed the plate in
front of her. She got up immediately, sprang to full attention and stared at me
like she had never seen me before.
“Don’t you like bread?”
I asked her to which she nodded, took the plate from me and began eating. It
made me really happy for some reason to see her eat.
After that day, I met
her again two weeks later when her mother brought her to our place once more. “Sit,”
she instructed her daughter, who crossed her legs and sat down on the floor,
staring at the wall as if it was the most interesting television show possible.
But as soon as she saw me, her gaze locked on me as if I was now the most
interesting phenomenon in her life.
I guessed she wanted
something to eat like the last time, so I foraged around in the kitchen and
arranged some stuff for her. She looked at me intently and then began to gulp down
everything on the plate. What a sweet hungry girl.
“Taaanku.” She said to
me.
“Thank you, you mean?” I
asked her.
She stared at me as if I
was speaking in an altogether different language, which I now realize I must
be.
“Do you go to school?”
She shook her head. I
frowned. How come her mother hasn’t enrolled her yet? She is young surely, but
old enough to be in a school.
But there was no point
in asking her why she hadn’t been put in a school.
“Do you know how to
read?” I asked her.
She nodded vigorously.
I was kind of surprised. I supposed she was being homeschooled.
Just then, she picked
up a newspaper lying nearby and raised it high in front of her. She then began
to speak. And speak gibberish she did. She pretended she was reading the
newspaper. She went on for about five minutes without stopping. She spoke
nothing of any sense whatsoever. I couldn’t help but crack up. She looked so
adorable, so sweet and yet so stupid. But what caused me astonishment was her
confidence. She was speaking like she was spouting some high-profile news items,
probably replicating people she had seen around her.
And then it struck me.
What was that advert I had seen regarding Nihar Shanti Amla Oil? I dialed 8055667788
and took the phone to her. It was Nihar Shanti Amla’s new concept – Pathshala
Funwala. As soon as she got hold of the phone, her attention was completely
diverted. It was as if I didn’t exist. After about three minutes, she handed me
the phone urgently, pointing to the buttons. I put the phone to my ear and
realized that the voice was asking for an option to continue the English
lessons.
From that day onwards,
whenever she came to our house, I would call up 8055667788 from our landline.
When the English tutorial by Shanti Amla called back, I would give her the
receiver. She would then spend hours listening to the lessons.
One day I saw her on
the street, walking with her mother. I had gone to the market for groceries.
“Hi didi! How are you?”
began a chirpy voice.
I turned, saw her mom
as taken aback by her words as I was. I stopped anyway and greeted her with a
smile.
“Do you go to school
now?”
I had talked to mother
regarding her schooling and it came out that they were not planning to send her
to an educational institution but after we coaxed her mom to do so by offering
to pay for her school fee, she had started going to school.
As they say “If you change nothing, then nothing will change”.
The sweet girl nodded.
“She is the best in
English in her class, her teacher told us that day. All thanks to you, bitiya.”
Her mother said to me, overwhelmed with joy.
I waived away the
thanks.
“She really loves the
fact that they call her Shanti Didi now!” exclaimed her mother happily.
Then it struck me. Her
mother’s name was Amla and hers Shanti. Talk about coincidences!
