Moral Malnutrition

In this arid zone,they make a living selling vegetables. Perhaps they are the only vendors you will find on the platform of this little village railway station where just 4 trains stop for less than a minute. Hearing the bell ringing,they line up...from little girls to old women each with a handful or some with a basketful of vegetables, and as the train slows down by the platform they run and hand it over to eager hands stretching out, like a relay race.

Some of them have their loyal regular customers and some need to find their daily bread donors.No bargains here because it is the cheapest deal one could ever get. Often i have seen them chasing the withdrawn hands from the train window clutching a bunch of beans or a few tomatos, shouting to throw the money on the platform... one could see the coins tossing off the platform...and some times they run till the edge of the platform and walk back bare handed with gloom strewn faces.

This time I saw something different...a middle aged man bargaining...and the girl negotiating...the green signal given and the train begins to move...she walks...and increases her pace...and then he clutched the vegetables with one hand and with the other hand he grabbed her breasts.The deal doesn't end there...he has't yet paid for the vegetables....she keeps running..and the man appears at the door and throws a currency note on the platform...the girl picks it up, walks on and slips it into her blouse while repositioning her displaced bra.

Hope those vegetables nourish yet another malnourished soul while I am sure to be a mute witness to more episodes of this, remaining a blackhole at heart.

Am just reminded of a Malayalam couplet Dr. Ayyappa Panicker :

" Ara vayar pattini kidakkunna ayaletthe penninu
muzhu vayar kodukkunna maanyarallo nammal!"

Roughly translated it reads:

"We are the gentlemen bequeathing a full belly
to the starving girl in the neighbourhood"