A Gift from Lahul

This is my first blog. Excuse me if gets a little pallid. This just my first attempt in writing some thing.

It was during November of last year, aftermath of a tragic and a year long episode of deceiving stuck me, an endearing thing happened in my life. It was Rahul. Now don’t let your imaginations fly too high. He is just a 7 year old adorable, cute little kid at Balakara Bala Mandir(BBM) a Home for kids between the age group of 6 to 14.
The first day at BBM, as I can still recall, there were many vacant expressions on faces of kids, some of them trying to sneak by my side checking if I got some eatables, some of them would just come and hug me as if I knew them for a long time.
It was totally a different feelingJ. After a lot of effort, I some how got close to few boys who agreed to take Jean(my friend) and me in the game called Lagori. There was one kid who would stand near by and watch us play and wouldn’t join us at all.
I thought this kid was kind of reticent. I couldn’t care less about this one kid as the captain of my team(Lagori) , wouldn’t tolerate any mistakes from my side.
The kids just want to win at any cost. Mind you the kids at this place are so strong both physically and mentally. After a tiring round, I gave up and my attention again drew to this kid who was just watching us play.
That is when I realized he was invalid. He had some problem with his right hand and right leg. He was Rahul. He cannot pronounce Ra. He replaces ‘Ra’ with ‘La’. You ask him his name, he would say Lahul J. He was from Indore and was picked up by the some government organization, from railway station at Bangalore. I have used the phrase “picked up” as that is just what happens. How he landed here is out of ambit of this blog.
I started visiting this place almost every weekend and eventually got close to many there.
And especially Rahul. He would just sit beside listening to the stories though they were narrated in kannada. As majority of the kids are kannadigas. He too would laugh when all others laughed and would parrot the words from others in kannda. All our group members just adored him as he was the young among others and for obvious reason that he was different from others physically.
Poor guy was beaten by other kids when we weren’t around. So we had to stop that special attention to this kid.
I always wanted to take an expert’s opinion about his hand. I had a slight hope that he could be normal as other kids, use his right hand and run normally as other kids. One day after all the formalities and with the permission of the Officer there I took him to a good orthopedist. After lot of dissension I got the permission to take him out. He was examined and doc said that it was some deformity caused due to polio and nothing much could be done about it now. I was so disheartened. Rahul was still smiling running around totally unaware of this. Even if he knew he couldn’t do much or he wouldn’t care. I had promised him that he would be alright just like others. “Hope”, “Miracle” are just rhetoric in some surreal world not MINE. While returning back to BBM, it was too hot as expected I dint get any auto. Just then I realized that Rahul dint have any foot wear so I had to carry him and walk. Just then he kissed me.
In his way ,he said ” mein theek hoo na.mein sab kuch kal(kar) sakta hoo”. Tears just rolled down my eyes. I cannot believe it till date that I cried!!