Shivam

It was a warm, sunny late afternoon. The sun has just begun to change its colors from a cold white to a glorious orange tone. It was my first day in Pushkar, first of the two short twenty four hours that I would spend in this part of India. In this country everything seemed to arrange itself artistically without much deliberation. The way the barber set his chair and mirror against the cyan wall, the way the two little boys played marbles on the dusty ground and the way the light shone into the empty tea house right in front of me.

The man sat outside of this tea house, on a white plastic chair whith his gaze tired and burdensome. As I walked pass he stopped me and asked me to take a picture of him. Full of prejudice, I said to him "nehi ruppee" and he nodded. His wife was inside the tea house and I asked if she wanted a picture too. She carried a weight of sadness and pain in her eyes.

He invited me inside for a cup of chai. I comply. It was dark, there was a mattress at the end of the room, and a little boy sitting at the edge of the table.

His name is Shivam. He is 8 years old and he has cerebral palsy. He made sounds but could not speak. Even then his father understood the meaning of his every move. The way he tilted his head, the faint smile on his lips, the look on his eyes. He was interpreting to me what they all meant as he looked at him. Proudly.
Shivam didn't mind me and my camera. He couldn't sit still for a second, just like any other eight year old boy. And I clicked away.

They had three other chidlren before him but they all passed away. I saw enough anguish and heaviness in the lines that marked their faces that I did not ask how. I looked down at the steaming cup of chai. Shivam wrigled. He wanted to try some of my chai. I motioned the cup towards him when his mother told me that he is only allowed to drink milk. We sat there for a little while longer. Communicating in broken english and hindi.

She was about to prepare dinner. They asked if I wanted to have some chapatis. I politely refused and told them I should probably get going since it's getting late.

He asked me to tell my friends of his tea house. I nodded. And gave him some money. Which he did not ask for. Which amount to nothing, in the bigger scheme of things. Of his son's medication, future, security.

So I walked back to my hotel, carrying a fragment of love encapsuled in the greatness and simplicity of Shivam and his parents. It gave me enough light to find my way back home.