I dont know.

I dont know.

Today like everyday i was at the traffic signal. It was very hot today. Not like other days when it is only raining. I was very hungry also. Had not had food since the last night. But thankfully that college girl gave me a chewing gum. Chewing gum is good to eat when you are hungry. It removes the hunger for some time. I told thank you to the girl with a smile. She told me to brush my teeth. I told her – Didi I do but the water only makes the teeth dirty. I dont know. She made some silly face. Some college girls are nice girls. Very often they share their chewing gums and choclates. But then some are dirty. They laugh at me and my friends or say some dirty things. I dont know but when they have some white wire in their ears they dont care about anything in the world. Rama tells me that we can listen to songs and talk to people from that wire. I told her you are stupid or what. And she anyways says lies so I dont know if she was saying the truth. She says that in Mumbai every second person puts wire in their ears. So funny it is. Maybe she is right. I dont know.

Anyways my favourite buble gum was now in my mouth. Strawberry buble gum I really like a lot. And I like how when i bite in the starting the buble gum breaks and all the strawberry juice comes into my mouth. It is just so yummy. I love to feel that. So then when I was having chewing gum for some time that day Satya – my best friend came to me with a big pav vada. The pav vada was the biggest I had seen in my life. The pav looked yummy. It was soft and not rubber. Mostly we get rubber pav when some person feels like giving us food instead of money. I say why give us such food because one time Rama had such a pav vada and she fall sick. For three days her stomach was paining so much. Full night she cried and Satya and I had to beg in the medicene shop to give us tablets. Medicene shop uncle is sweet. He gave choclate for Rama also. But how many times he will do like this? I dont know. So anyway this Satya’s pav was not rubber and i could smell the lasun chutney inside. My mouth was full of spit. It happens when you want to eat something you like a lot or when you eat after long time. Now I had to remove my chewing gum. Satya was telling me to take it quickly because his signal had stopped and he was losing his dhandha. He told me some abuses and put the pav vada in my hand forcingly and ran across the road. Now I was too hungry to eat so I wanted to quickly throw my favourite strawberry buble gum and eat the vada pav. I was anyways eating chewing gum for a long time.

Normally what I do na is if I have not eaten the chewing gum for too much long time then I put the chewing gum back in the paper then eat food and then after sometime I eat it again. This way I dont waste it.

But today was diffrent. When I removed the chewing gum I realised that there was a problem. I had removed the chewing gum but there was no paper to put chewing gum inside and throw it in the dustbin. I was so foolish. My two fingers were now one because of the sticky gum. Now with extra big vada pav in one hand and three useful fingers in the other hand I was crawling on the road to find some paper. Till last week this paper finding job would be very easy because everyone just throws papers from rikshas and bus but since one week BMC has done good job to clean the road. I like it when people dont litter. Lata Di who is my teacher and has taught us drawing and reading and writing and speaking in English and Hindi always tells us to not throw kuchra on the road. Lata Di is a college student who comes to teach us every evening. We learn on the road only. Because she also does not have lots of money to buy a class for us but she has promised to do something about it soon.

She says that I want all of you kids to be Litterate. And she says Litteracy means when you dont throw paper and chewing gum and spit on the road. She says only people who are not educated and who come from dirty homes dirty the city. But I want to study. And become a big person. Lata Di tells me always that Zaheer you are very smart and you will become successful one day but only if you dont put finger in your nose and eat the dirt. I took many days to stop that habit. Really but I used to like the flavour of the semud a lot. She only has told me to write in this notebook everyday so that I will be able to write in correct English after sometime. I really like Lata Di. I want to be litterate so that she is proud of me. So that no one can say I come from a dirty family. So that people think i am educated. So everytime my friends throws something on the road I just start fighting with them. I tell them that do you want to be known as dirty children from dirty families when you become big? Or do you want to be Litterate? I dont know. It just makes me very angry. I dont like it. I dont know.

Anyway after much searching I finally found a paper and threw my chewing gum in the dustbin. Now I was finally going to eat my vada pav. It was so hot but then the vada pav in front of me made me feel nice. Cars like everyday were making the full air full of smoke. And there was so much of noise and traffic. I feel like removing my ears at times for sometime.

Eating my vada pav with a smiling face I was sitting next to the road. I saw many big people and big cars passing by. And then my eyes went to this big long black car. It was a superb car. Full black with silver outline. And the windows were dark and up. It was so long. I could not properly see who was inside. The car was right in front of me. I told to myself that Zaheer you will buy such a car someday. Again I started eating my pav vada when suddenly the window of the car started coming down. It was superb. Inside the car I saw a young man wearing spectacles. He was reading English newspaper. He looked almost like Hritik Roshan. He was eating a banana and reading together. He looked at me and smiled. His body was also great. I told to myself that Zaheer you must study hard and become like this man. Smart and educated. Just then he made a seeti sound to call me. Looking at me from up to down or down to up I dont remember he gave me one big banana. I was very happy. I told him that I want to be like him when I become big. He smiled again.

Then after 1 minute the signal became green. I waved out to him. He did not see I think. After that - what I saw has just made me very upset. I am not getting sleep also. Why did she teach me the wrong thing? Why did she say that it is the most imporant thing? I cannot understand.

He has studied so much and is such a rich person with a big nice car – then why did he throw the banana peel on the road? Why? He is not from a dirty family then why did he throw it? I can still see the yellow peel with black dots on it in my mind. For ten minutes I was only looking at it. My anger was funny today. I did not want to tell him abuses. It was a funny thing.

And as I am writing this I am thinking. I am thinking that people who are educated and are big people do this kind of behaviour then – Why is Litteracy so very important? Is it?

I dont know.




Zaheer Sheikh
14-10-2008