A girl of my country

It is a September day and mild coolness of last few days' rain is fast evaporating. Usual humidity and sweat of the city are getting their hold on the atmosphere back. I am waiting on my two-wheeler at a busy traffic signal to take my right turn under the flyover. Thin and depleted leaves of the tree branches overhang the left of the road providing a semblance of a shadow.

Vehicles are accumulating around me and the red signal starts counting down from 160 seconds. Road is filled with smoke and idling noises of all kind of creatures producing that smoke. From fine purrs of the cars of the rich to thin crackling sounds of auto-rickshaws of the middle class and ugly whirrs of state transport busses and trucks of the poor as they vomit more black smoke.

As 160 seconds showed up, lot of traffic started turning their engines off and there is a perceptible reduction in noise. Amidst all of this, I saw a girl studying under the flyover right next to the road. She is sitting on ground in dirty frock resting her back on dusty zebra colored concrete slab. She is around 8 or 9 and seems to be doing her homework or preparing for exam, as she is quickly turning used rounded pages of her large notebook in her small hands. She is lost in her work and she is oblivious of her clothes or heat, dust and smoke around her. Big hoardings of culturally appealing beautiful ladies showing off silk sarees stand on top of her.

As I prepare to move on, I am silently admiring the resilience of that girl, which I am sure she is not aware of.

A girl of my country--my sister--is studying under a smokey flyover in traffic inhaling all that dirt in seemlingly aloof harmony, surrendered to just one thing, her studies. I salute you sister and many more like you. This great country is your inheritance.