The Blue Blanket

Raghu and Roshni found it challenging to cross over the street. The seven and five year old siblings fought it hard, but the active hours posed a stumbling block. The speeding cars and buses passed in a flash and didn’t let them succeed.

Raghu clutched her hand securely. She was his duty and he had to execute that devotedly. His sister barely had turned two years when their parents left them on this street sleeping for never to reappear. They dumped the two children merely for their incapability to feed them. Poor kids! These children were putting a trouble and inconvenience for them monetarily? What was their fault?

When Raghu awakened at the subsequent sunrise, no one was around except for little Roshni sleeping by his side. His parents went missing. He was small as well to comprehend. He blubbered. He was starving. He desired his mother. He was terrified and frightened. He cried loudly with stream of tears gushing and water running out of nose. He cried for nearly half an hour but there was not a soul to hear him. People sauntering by looked at him but none stopped to ask him. Who stops over a small kid in soiled ragged clothes? When Roshni opened her eyes, she noted her brother weeping. Being too little to grasp why he was crying, she continued looking at him with her naive eyes. Raghu, when worn-out of bawling, sobbed and wiped the tears from mucky cheeks and rubbed his blowing nose with the sleeves of patched and shabby T-shirt. He realized that not a soul is going to come. Sun was reaching higher in the sky. He got up and held his sister’s hand. With short toddling steps she walked and he, keeping pace with her, reached a tea-stall a few steps further on in the lane.

He gawked at the baked biscuits set in a transparent pot on the stall. He gazed them greedily and ravenously. He was starving. Roshni would be starving. After all they hadn’t had anything since last morning. They were hungry for nearly twenty four hours. The stall owner, an old man, frowned and puckered his gray brows. Raghu didn’t stir and stared them with soggy eyes. Roshni, anonymous to everything, looked at the vendor. They finally had succeeded in melting the old man’s heart and he gave them two biscuits. Raghu took them and they sat on the footpath, beside the stall. He forward one to his sister and had the other one for himself. They both had their bites innocently and voraciously. They then had water from the tap on the left of the stall. The old man, Rashid, was so influenced by their artlessness that he remembered his struggle as an abandoned child to subsist unaided in this vicious planet.

He called them, “Hello! Listen you two!”

Raghu turned around. Rashid waved his hand to call them. Raghu looked intently at him for a minute, unsure of what to do, he came back to Rashid. May be the biscuits constructed a faith.

Rashid asked, “What’s the matter, beta? Where are your parents?”

The two were too little to respond. They couldn’t figure out the gist of what was happening to them. However Rashid understood what it really was. It was not difficult for him to get the picture.

“What’s your name my dear child?” he asked.

“Raghu…”

“And is she your sister?”

“Hmm…”

“Raghu…you both can stay here with me…like my kids…I will give you to eat…OK…Will you?”

Raghu nodded. Nothing was better than biscuits at that time.

And then Rashid offered them the biscuits and a little food from his own, daily. Rashid himself was poverty-stricken and all by himself in life. He made a small living from that tea stall and these children proved an antidote for his aloneness. They played there with him around the stall and the three slept at night outside the stall on footpath.

But time never stays the same. Rashid died this winter because of excessive cold. The two kids were again left forlorn. Raghu took over the stall and managed it fairly well to earn a bread of two times. This winter, like every winter, they hadn’t had anything to shield them from the chilliness. The lone rag they had was tattered and worn out that made it inadequate to screen them from chilling cold. Their nights were more dreadful and horrendous. No sweater to wear and no blanket to wrap them.

 

They were striving to go across the street but high speed vehicles were creating the trouble. Luckily they spotted another man next to them who was also trying to cross the road. Raghu monitored his steps and as he crossed, they walked alongside the man. And Raghu didn’t left Roshni’s hand at any point of time. She was absolutely out of harm’s way when with her brother.

The two eventually made it, walked and hopped merrily to their right on the other side. They were full of pride like a victorious king who has overpowered his biggest rival with his brains. And here the opponent was the road and its pawns were those vehicles. They hopped and sang the song that they had frequently heard on the Rashid’s radio and ultimately stopped outside a cloth emporium. They set their eyes on the blue blanket that dangled on the display. The blanket had a dark blue hue with numerous beautiful white sparkling stars spread all over it and a half moon smiling and bidding good night. They stared at the splendor of the blanket absorbedly. They chuckled and looked intently at the blanket. The guard of the store noticed them. He was annoyed seeing them pay a visit daily. He shooed them away, “Hey! You two! Run away!”

They took two-three steps back and all over again resumed watching the blanket innocuously. He shouted once more, “Go away… every day I am seeing you here…how your parents can leave you like this?” and he again made them run.

Raghu frowned at him with innocent impish expressions and ran with his sister back to the footpath.

 

It was night and cold was colder than any night. Every part of the body was numb. And in that chilling night, the two kids lay in rags gazing the stars.

“Raghu…why do we go to that store daily?” Roshni asked ingenuously.

“To have a glimpse of that blue blanket…”

“Why?”

“To feel its warmth…the mere memory of that blanket is enough to make us warm…”

“Raghu, why can’t we have that blue blanket?”

“I don’t know…it’s just that we cannot buy it.”

“Why?”

“We have no parents to pay for it…”

“Where are our parents?” Roshni was artlessly bombarding her queries.

Raghu looked at her on the last doubt and harked back to the night he last saw their parents and the morning that followed when he found them lonesome.

“Rashid kaka was our parent? Where is he now?” she inquired again when there was no response for long.

“It’s getting late…close your eyes…picture the blue blanket over you…and your cold will peter out.”

She shut her eyes and tried to consider the warmth that blue blanket could give them but no, she was not warm.

“Raghu”, she opened her eyes and looked at her brother; “I am still feeling cold.”

He turned to face her and embraced her tightly, “Now you won’t feel any chills. We have our blue blanket…the dark blue sky…with its dazzling stars and smiling vivid moon…”

And then they slept.

The next morning they opened their eyes to feel the special warmth and tenderness around them. The BLUE BLANKET!!! It was covering the two. They were stunned.

“Raghu…look…it’s gorgeous …” Roshni said enthusiastically with a sparkle in her eyes.

Raghu nodded while his eyes turned all around, astonishingly, searching for someone who could have brought that blue blanket for them. Rashid had once told them a story of a fairy that fulfills the dreams of poor children and bring gifts for them when they are fast asleep. Was it she? They were puzzled and ecstatic at the same moment. They laid a hand on the soft blue fur of the blanket…flipped it upside down to have a close look at the stars and the moon…they smiled, giggled, and played in happiness of possession of the blue blanket…they have lastly acquired the warmness of blue blanket…and there across the street, owner of the store stood smiling, cheery, watching their boundless happiness…

__END__