Basantika

Today is Poila Boisakh. The auspicious beginning of new year and the end of Bosonto.

I am not sure why I am writing this down today as this incident happened atleast a couple of weeks back. It happened in the middle of Bosanto. But it stayed with me.

My cousin RJ is a singer. She was performing in Deshapriyo Park as part of an annual concert "Basantika" arranged by her school of music. This was just a week after Holi. The weather was perfect with a cool breeze flowing. I made myself commfortable on the carpet with my mother and my aunt. There were all these lovely young(at heart definitely) men and women from the age of  4 to 60 dressed in the colours of Spring sitting around me with bright coloured Abir smeared quite artistically on their cheeks. There were dance recitals and songs and poetry recitals. There were artists painting large canvases with the hues of yellow and orange and red and green. There was this ambiance and energy of creativity and appreciation and everyone was enthralled, engrossed and enamoured by it.

And there were this group of girls between the age of 4 to 6. All dressed up in saris and jewelleries with flowers in their hair. They were playing among themselves, throwing flowers at each other(something very Shantiniketan about it) and then suddenly I noticed two street kids among them. The younger one was about three and the older one, perhaps four. At first they sat at quite a distance and  looked at the group of girls playing rathar tentatively. Then the younger one took a handful of flowers and threw at the nearest girl. The girl  threw it back at the child and slowly but steadily the two kids became a part of the group. Playing with them, laughing with them and enjoying with them. Then came the food packets. I actually instinctively found myself concentrating more on the kids than on the concert from that moment on. The little girls actually even shared their food with them. Like buddies. Eating from the same packet. I must admit. In my adult mind I was cringing thinking perhaps this is not the most hygenic thing to do. The little girls did not care or bother. As far as they were concerned they had made two new friends and they were sharing. And then suddenly a group of slightly older girls around the age of 10 to 12 came with their food packets. The older girls dissaproved of the situation visibly. One of the older girls gave the two kids a packet and a bottle of water and showed them the way out. I am sure that this is what is considered an act of kindness. But there was also this sense of demarcation in that act of kindness. Like the girls were in some sort of a higher position to feel sorry or pity for the two kids. They could show kindness to them but not consider them at par. Perhaps not even consider them human. The  way those little girls were behaving was much more humane, much more real. They were fighting about who gets the piece of cake like they would with friends, with equals.

I wonder when this sense that we are better, that we are privileged creeps inside us ? When does it become them and us? When do they cease to become perhaps even people ?

With the sun setting, sitting in the middle of this beautiful, cultural ambiance, I could not shake away the melancholy from my soul. Because I have myself grown up. I can never do what those little girls did.