The Forlorn Child

The beseeching cry of a child broke the silence of the evening. Darkness had fallen and the rains had ceased for a while after almost two and a half days. The cry brought me out in the verandah as I squinted my eyes to locate the source of the cry.

I heard the sound again and again. My heart cried out………..I wanted to reach out. There are some calls that seem to touch you where no one else can. Some say it is a female’s heart, some say it is a person’s conscience. I think it is just those sudden things, those little things that move you almost to tears and touch you to the core of the heart.

I surprised myself to find tears trailing down my cheeks. I didn’t know why, I didn’t know how…………I just knew that I had to respond somehow.

Suddenly in the haloed patch of light on the street I see the child, the infant on all fours crying out, probably, for it’s mother. I see it looking this way and that…those eyes searching for the known face, the known bosom, that of its mother.

It started raining once again. I saw the child moving for shelter. I yearned to help it but propriety beckoned- I couldn’t leave home because it wouldn’t be “proper”.

These simple things which life brings in front of you sometimes leaves you seeking for a reason, but I guess there are some emotions which have no reason.

A myriad of such emotions flitted through me as I saw my forlorn child “mewing” it’s way out of sight.