Story # 5 Like a flower in the wilderness - Juhu beach, Bombay, India

Malnourished little girl, same age as the one described in the story

Story # 5 Like a flower in the wilderness-Juhu beach - Bombay. 

Have you ever felt alone among a multitude, hopeless before an unsolved problem, shy before a situation, the ground unexpectedly collapsing under your feet, a stomach ache pervading your entrails and your mind in utter confusion? I have. This occurred in Juhu, the dreamy Bombay beach described in the previous story.

Fifty yards from the place where the day before the sand had been shaped into refined sculptures, somebody had placed a few upturned wooden boxes on the sand. On top of them were some prizes and some money. On the sand was a basket full of wooden hoops. Like bees around a bee-hive, people crowded the place, eager to hire the hoops and try their lot. The game consisted of landing the hoops around a mirror, a piece of soap, a comb, a 10-rupee bill and other prizes of little value. Everything was placed on a wooden base of a different size. From time to time, the game organizers placed a hoop around each prize, to reassure the players that the hoop was bigger than the base under the object to be won.

A few yards away, the tiny hand and forearm of a child, vertically sticking out of the sand, reminded the passers-by that an unfortunate creature had been buried alive. Now and then, the little hand seemed to give signs of life. Or, maybe, it was only my imagination. When I narrowed my eyes, in that thin arm, gripped by the sand, I saw the image of a sick stalk holding a small flower curled up in itself. Its five petals seemed to foresee a fate of death in an inhospitable wilderness.

Looking closely, one perceived that a handkerchief had been placed over the mouth of the victim, covered with a thin layer of wet sand, to allow the poor child to breathe. On the nearby sand lay a giant cardboard sign with many lines of scripture in the local language. On my invitation, a local explained it was the request for alms to support a large family, a few members of which were sick.

I felt the familiar pang of pity, soon replaced by revulsion.

How ironical, I thought. Some of the family are sick and somebody had the bright idea of placing one more member of that family in the ideal condition of getting sick in no time.. What sad logic! But, at times, the twinge of existential despair overcomes all logic.

None of the bystanders cared about the fate of the little creature buried under the sand. Whoever lay under there didn’t exist. A child abused like that, compelled to stay in that supine, motionless position, in the dark for many hours a day, without water or food, although hard to believe, must be normal in India, one of the many cultural conditionings that go unnoticed.

It occurred to me I might devise something to help. If I could relieve its suffering, even of a tiny bit, it would be worth it.

“I am mad at these people,” I said to Patrizia. “I am also damned curious to watch their reactions when faced with what I have in mind. It will come as a surprise to you too, even though you’ll shortly discover what it’s all about.”

Patrizia looked intrigued.

“Are you ready for a little adventure?”

“Dangerous?”

“Not at all… At least… I imagine not,” I added as an afterthought.

I asked a guy next to me wearing a white shirt where I could have wooden hoops made. He volunteered to accompany us to the carpenter. The price was very modest. I ordered a dozen which would be ready the next day.

”Are you going to organize a game on the beach? What about the other organizers?” Patrizia asked.

“Do not worry; you may have noticed that they are not there every day. We shall choose the right day. And besides, I only need a couple of hours, maybe less, one time only.”

“I cannot guess where you are going with this. What I can tell for sure is that you are not doing it for money.”

“This tells me that, after less than six months, you know me well enough. Now we have to buy stuff to place as prizes and change some money.”

The next day, I picked up the hoops and bought two one-centimeter high boards for the bases to be placed under the prizes and to be centered by the hoops. I cut the bases square and of different sizes, according to the value of the prize they should bear on top. My main concern was the base on which I had planned to place the top prize in money. I cut it only a fraction smaller than the hoop diameter.

But, how to get a statistical idea of the odds the players would have? Unfortunately, there was no other way than throwing the hoop towards that base. I took several hours, in two consecutive days, to cast one thousand times, failing to hit the money prize, often wondering whether I was completely honest in leaving the gamblers such a small winning margin…

The next day, as soon I had I arranged on the sand the “playing table“, that is, a few inverted crates, a crowd flocked by, as silent as stealthy steps on the sand. I soon realized that they were staring in disbelief at the money prize, one hundred rupees, a small fortune in India, which, besides, was 10 times higher than the already high prize offered by the other organizers of the same game. I perceived murmurs of wonder and disbelief.

As I was making sure that everyone saw that the hoop fitted around the wooden stand, I was caught by a pang of remorse. In the meantime, I sensed a general hesitation that made me fear that nobody would try the lot. Instead, a few moments later, a middle-aged gentleman, money in his hands, shyly asked for the rings and paid for them. Indifferent to the other easier minor prizes, he aimed straight for the big money.

First throw: center!

I was speechless! But soon I felt relieved as if a great burden had been lifted from my shoulders. I turned towards Patrizia whose eyes were wide open, either out of wonder or uneasiness. The moment of truth for our customers had come much earlier than foreseen. An obvious expectation became palpable in the air. For sure they were wondering whether the foreigner would honor the winning.

I lifted the one hundred rupee bill and waved it in the air. After shaking the winner’s hand and congratulating him for his skill I gave him the money. Perhaps nobody around could understand English but in this case, words were unnecessary.

While I was placing another bill of one hundred rupees on top of the same wooden base, an amusing thing occurred that one cannot forget in a lifetime. Ten or 12 people flapped their bills in the air, shouldering each other aside and raising their voices to be the first to pay for the hoops. Of course, it looked so easy!

I glanced at Patrizia, saying, “There is nothing to worry about it. I must tell you this early win is a lucky occurrence for us, even though I am still wondering how he did it. It means we shall make a lot of money. Remember: math is not an opinion!”

The money I had lost was enough to buy 54 meals in a local restaurant! And yet, in the next 20 minutes, I got even. In another hour or so, I made the net equivalent of 50 meals.

Suddenly there was a murmur of voices, the crowd quickly parted and two policemen materialized in front of us. They signaled us to stop. I was expecting trouble to come and at the least, a seizure of the material. Instead, when I stopped immediately without arguing and packed up, they went away.

“It’s forbidden because it’s considered gambling,” said a voice behind my back.

I turned, wondering who was speaking English. At the word gambling, my mind darted to the booths of the Italian fairs, where, I deduced, the organizers of similar gambling games must hold a special permit. Maybe, here too, the gambling organizers of the preceding days had gotten a special permit?

As if he had read my mind, the guy continued, “But, if you wish, I will show you how you can carry on with your business.”

Frankly, for what I had in mind next, the money I had made was enough. And yet, the curiosity to know how things worked in that part of the world was too tempting. “How is it possible? Show me.”

“Can you see a police sentry-box down there?” he said pointing at it. “With a little bribe of one rupee to the day attendant and one rupee to the night guardian, they won’t bother you again.”

“One rupee each?” I said to Patrizia. “Two rupees altogether each day? That is not even the price of one meal. I do not intend to carry on with the game but let’s go just the same and check whether it is true. It will be fun and we may learn something.”

The guy stepped with us into the sentry-box, 50 yards away. The guard on duty confirmed everything and I told him I would think it over.

We walked back to the place where I had organized the game. I glanced once more at the little hand sticking out of the sand. I got closer and finally stood before the sepulcher.

“It’s a little girl,” the voice of the guy who had taken us to the police sentry shack whispered in my ear.

No rights for women in these countries, was my first thought. But I was wrong: sex, in this case, had nothing to do with it. As I learned later on, in India, there are families who mutilate both their male and female children by crippling them, so that, from an early age throughout all their lives, they can support the family by begging for alms. This is the drama of a misery that is believed an irreversible consequence of Karma. How ironic that, during the three hours I had stood nearby the day before, watching the locals wasting a lot of rupees to play the hoops, none of them had dropped a single cent in the basket near the little girl’s hand! It had been a hard pill to swallow. And yet, this had given me the idea of organizing the game. Now I had the money and everybody knew how I had earned it.

“Would somebody please call a member of the family?” I said turning to the guy who had spoken.

An aged, skinny gentleman with a face like an expressionless mask, showed up in no time. He was now standing before me. Could he have been her father, uncle or grandfather? I lowered my gaze to glance inside the alms basket. It was empty.

“How much does the little girl bring home every day?” I asked.

The guy translated my question from English into the local language.

“Sometimes a rupee, sometimes a few cents… Sometimes nothing,” he added looking at the empty basket. I could not tell whether the estimate was sincere.

“Can you please bring her out of the sand?”

The old man was unwilling to comply with my request.

“Please tell him that if he brings her out I shall give him a lot of money.”

The old man was reluctant. The translator spoke a few more words to him.

At last the old man stepped towards the little hand and removed the sand, bringing out an emaciated little girl, clearly underfed, and barely standing. She was as expressionless as a living zombie.

“She needs food and medicine,” I said. “Tell him I shall give him one hundred rupees which is equal to three months’ earnings. But he has to promise me he won’t make her work for at least 10 days.” As soon as I had said the time, it occurred to me that, most likely, the old man could not count. It was frustrating. I stepped closer to the little girl and removed a few grains of wet sand from one cheek.

There was no reaction. She kept looking straight ahead, staring into nothingness with a blank expression. Her lethargic look showed neither interest nor concern, nor a glimmer of relief: much less hope. She seemed already well beyond the threshold of physical and mental pain. The precocious ancestral resignation in the face of a suffering harder than she could take had unleashed the protective defenses of her body-mind system. She had become insensitive to both the interior and exterior world. Her unawareness of my presence did not surprise me.

While giving the money to the old man, I heard whispers behind my back. Suddenly I felt like an intruder: too soft and lenient for such a monstrously crystallized reality. And incapable of helping. Distressed, I couldn’t linger an instant longer in that place. I walked away.

A friendly hand touched my arm: the young man who had translated for me and had taken us to the sentry-box, said in a reassuring voice, ”I may guess why you gambled. Perhaps to send us gamblers a message? But nobody has understood why you did it. Tomorrow none of us will leave her a penny. Besides, she is the daughter of an untouchable, the lowest of the Indian casts. You have touched her. You are now impure. Not everybody here understands that your customs, where you live, are different. Most of them are not so open-minded… ”

“I thought Gandhi had abolished the caste system a long time ago,” I said disheartened.

“In theory, yes. In practice… well… such is life here.”