Flashbacks

$30. Or was it $35?

It was one specific weekend where I had taken the train to The Taj in downtown Mumbai alone. I was looking for some quiet respite and had wanted to escape "work" for awhile- but evidently one cannot escape from neither poverty nor pain. 

A lady carrying her finger-sucking infant approaches me, after several waves of other strangers tried selling me their balloons, semi-dried flower chains, and melting chocolates first.  I caved in on their fourth attempt and straddled down several alleys and half body-width lanes to a small mamaji shop by the corner. The shopkeeper behaved peculiarly and spoke in a near perfect British accent, on how I should buy more chocolates (or if I was watching my weight), whilst I picked out some milk powder for the baby. I paid $30. Or maybe $35 and was swarmed by an army of children thereafter. They were pulling me down to the ground. 

I stook out my arm and waved at a black, rickety, car. A taxi driver came to my rescue and shooed them away like fruit flies. I boarded the car, then the train, and wailed like my parents had just died, while speaking to my father on the phone. And all in all, kind eyed Indian ladies all around reached out to hold my hand, and seemingly smiling and saying through their eyes, "Everything will be okay. Don't cry. Don't be sad."

There is much grief, and sorrow in this world. But everything will be okay.