Natarajan

Natarajan Raman’s entry

Childhood hero

Last night when I was relaxing in the bed, all of a sudden, I heard a lot of noise. However, I could clearly hear what people around were talking.

“Should not let such guys go. Let us bash him”, Said one.

“Let us take him to police; else he would become a big criminal tomorrow. Rogue…!” said the other.

Assuming something serious must have happened I rushed outside, only to find a small kid with a book in hand, surrounded by many ‘prudent’ individuals bashing him.

He would not be more than eight. I stopped them and asked,”What has happened?” They said, “This rascal from slum has stolen this book.”

Looking at the book that was almost torn, I was surprised and asked him “Hey didn’t you find anything else better?”

He did not reply, as I asked him again, he mumbled with tears, “Anna, tomorrow is Gandhi Jayanthi, I always wanted to have one photo of him. As I saw his photo in this book, I just took this to have a closer look at it; I did not intend to run away with this.”

There was no face then, leave alone noise.