Sashi's face softened a bit. "I helped myself," he clarified. "I was so alone after a while that I figured out how to escape the house. I had loosened a few spokes in one of the windows' grills and learned how to go around the town on my own. Unfortunately, I had to sneak back home every evening before my mother returned. I was scared they would hit me if they realized I was going out, but that wasn't the only reason. I didn't know the world, didn't know what to do if I ran away from home for real, where to go. To me, the world seemed like a place filled withpeople like my father and mother. I didn't want to offer myself up to them."
Mitra's eyes flickered. It was like many of the tales she had heard about children rescued from abusive homes. Vishal had once done a news report on them and the stories he passed on to her were filled with such horrors that she couldn't help wonder how such parents could exist.
"You didn't go to school?" she finally managed to ask.
"I did go to a government school for a few years, till I learned how to read and write fluently. Till third standard, I think. I fell sick then; took a couple of months to recover. They never bothered to send me back to school again. He was busy finding day jobs and drinking, while she was busy making money for herself."
Mitra didn't have to ask who the 'he' and 'she' were.
"And I was considered a weakling and waste of space and money," Sashi continued. "So, you see, I had to look after myself. The first time I escaped from home, I was ten years old. I would pick up stray newspapers and books at places to keep up the reading habit. You can say I was a genius to have been self-educating myself in the situation I was in. One winter afternoon, when it was just warm enough in the cloudy climate, I was passing through a church when I met you."
###
He was a ten-year-old boy who wandered the streets at random times of the day, careful not to get noticed by anyone of consequence. He had heard enough of his mother and father fight with each other and speak to others to know where they would be during the day. The knowledge steered him far away from those parts of the town.
He would walk around keeping himself to the sides of the roads. Within days he had learnt to move without grabbing any attention, wending his way in the shadows. He was a quick learner and he felt proud of his escapades and abilities.
He would steal food and books on the way, hide them at home to feast upon when he had to stay locked up, for he wouldn't risk leaving the house everyday lest either of his parents came home for a lunch break or afternoon nap.
A few months after he had began breaking out, he started finding the town streets boring. It was always the same, people going around either on their own business or being nosy about others' affairs. He had been successfully avoiding attention and being caught while swiping things on the way, but the thrill of hoodwinking began waning as days passed.
It was a week before Christmas and the weather looked like it might rain in the night. He was walking through a very quiet neighbourhood, something he found more relaxing than the more populous and bustling areas. Sashi didn't entirely know the difference between the various religions and the prayer houses specific to each of them.
He was aware that there was a prayer house in that street which had a nameplate stating it was a church. There used to be hardly any people in there during the afternoons and he used to sit in the shade of the trees nearby at times during his wandering.
That afternoon, however, there was a middle-aged man painting the compound wall of the church. He had completed coating the wall with a white background and was outlining some words to be painted on it. He was sketching out the outlines of the words in various colours, probably the colours that need to be filled in the void of the lines.
Sashi stood to a side of the street in a corner, trying to decipher the words from their outlines. It looked like some quote from a religious book centred around god.
Right, God. What is this obsession people have with god?
Neither of his parents were religious, so he wasn't educated in that aspect. Yet, on his walks he had observed people being very focused on the entity called god, for what reason he didn't know.
As he looked around to make sure he wasn't being intruded upon, Sashi noticed a little girl standing quite a distance away and ogling at the painting in progress. Short and bubbly, dressed in a blue frock with two braids, she seemed excited for some reason as she looked at the painter with glee.
She had eyes for nothing else. Just the colours and the words being etched on the wall.
The painter paused after a few moments, set down his brushes and left, presumably for a break.
The second he went out of sight, the little girl sprang forward, crossed the road towards the wall and grabbed one of the paint brushes. She took a moment to study the wall, assessing the colour that needs to be painted to fill in the words.
Sashi imagined her to mess up the whole advent, earning the wrath of the painter and the church people. The first few words were supposed to be pained in blue...
The girl dipped the brush in the tub of blue paint and then meticulously started filling in the words on the wall. She went beyond Sashi's expectations of a little girl with a paint brush and a random wall at her mercy. She was elated, focused and passionate as she painted slowly.
She was glowing to him.
Without realizing it, Sashi moved across the street towards her, stopping a few feet away from her. It took a few seconds for the girl to notice that she had audience. She froze in fear and turned to see if the original painter was back. When she spotted Sashi, it was a moment of stillness for both.
Sashi hated being looked at by others. Yet, somehow, the little girl's gaze at him was different. She seemed scared, which changed in a split second.
Mitra, who had half expected to be caught and persecuted for her playful actions, was pleasantly surprised to see a much older boy watching her in wonder and wistfully. She assumed he might want to try painting the wall just like her.
And she smiled at him, warmly, brightly, like a friend.