ATAullah's thingy

There was this incident that happened that left me wondering for nights together. I would keep thinking about the child in this incident, keep on admiring myself, keep on admiring him, keep on admiring his parents but the answer would always be nothing.

Whenever there are some religious ceremonies happening, or whenever there is a festival to be celebrated, we a group of more than handful of guys serves food for our jamaat (group of people who are from the same sect and have certain common beliefs). We serve food to the women in our jamaat. The reason we serve food is to derive satisfaction and pleasure out of it. We serve food because we have got nothing better to do. We serve food because we can be proud of doing something for the community. We also pick up thaals (a very large round aluminum plate, larger than the drum used for March past and by orchestra). The reason for doing that is to prove our mardangi to everyone around and not just to clean the place. We clean the place and serve so that we get our recognition of the work we are doing and the receive gratitude towards the work done for them.

We’ve been doing the thaal lifting work very efficiently and then suddenly a kid turns up right in front of me, raising his hand forward. I knew nothing about what was happening. My first thought was that, why would the kid want to pick up such a heavy thaal. I know kids get inquisitive on how it’s picked up and stuff but no one has happened to ever ask to pick up a thaal, a thaal is heavy man! It’s not a child’s play.

I bend down and ask, ‘kya hua?’ He said nothing.

I again asked ‘kya hua chotu? Thaal hona?’ he did not utter a word but the eyes said it all.

He raised his hand again and motioned a shake. I was left perturbed by the incident. My hand paved its way towards his. They met, they shook and he left. Left I was with a feeling unexplained. A small kid shook my hand and ran away and I did nothing but stare at him run past me. People around me were staring and smiling in belief of

‘Oh! He deserved it’

I was left there with my thoughts moving around so rapidly and nothing working. It was like feeling content. It was like satisfaction has reached its peak and I need nothing. Though I cannot really guess what was cooking in the kid’s mind. You have no idea what might have provoked it. Was it because we serve? Was it because we clean the place of the thaals? Was it because we take too much care? Then why was it only me that the kid shook hands with? Why was I shown the gratitude?

I would love to receive these answers, but I think I already have them subconsciously. Now all I need to do is serve the kid and the women there and bask in the glory of the gratitude of the kid on behalf of all of them.

Thank You, Kid.

This is to you.