The shadow of a Child by Bharati Rose (good beach reads txt) 📕

He was definitely human, but the way the child snarled, baring all his teeth, saliva dripping from the corner of his mouth, called that into question. The child’s teeth were stained a dreadful tainted yellow. His pupils were dilated. His eyes projected rage, and some emotion that was harder to decipher. As we approached, he loomed closer and closer in view. He was crawling on his hands and knees, digging his fingernails into the dirt in the dense forest. This child was raised among wolves; a feral child. This was child that went missing from home over five years ago.

He did not want a female child. He refused to look at her. Raising her would mean the burden of a dowry for her wedding. He was a poor man. Female infanticide was common in his village he reasoned. He thrust her into the waiting arms of the old woman. Accepting the newborn, the woman crooned a hymn, meaning to ease the path to the creator. The child’s mother lay crying softly on her cot, curled up from the pain of delivery, mourning the loss of her child. She had not seen her baby’s face. They had killed her child.

I watch transfixed from taxi at a pair of children dodging traffic in the busy streets of Mumbai. A boy, not be more than eight years old, carried an infant, not more than a year old on his back. He ran up and down stores to beg for rations they could offer his little sister. The infant wailed as he continued to plead with merchants. Crossing to my cab he asked for spare change. I handed him enough change to get a wholesome meal. Smiling he turned only to have the money snatched away by a passing thief who ran.

Publication Date: 07-08-2012

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