Sashi was taken aback. No one had ever smiled at him like that.
Mitra scanned around for another brush, found one dipped in the tub of yellow paint and pulled that out for him carefully. She offered it to him with just a few words to say, "Here, you can try too. But we have to finish it before that painter uncle returns." She studied the wall again and pointed at a shape that was outlined in yellow, "There, that's yellow. You take care of that while I finish this."
Sashi never felt so complicated. It was an unknown emotion to him. He hadn't been included in anything so wholeheartedly ever. Everyone hated him, including his own parents who cursed him everyday and locked him up to avoid dealing with him.
The girl however kept talking to him while she worked, as if Sashi was her friend. She chattered away, "I asked that painter uncle to let me try painting this just once, but he wouldn't. It was just white colour all over the wall. I don't know what his problem was. That's why I was waiting for him to leave in between." She chuckled as she said, "He is going to be so surprised!"
To Mitra, the boy was just one of the neighbourhood kids whom she sometimes played with in the evenings. She had been to the homes of some of her grandparents' neighbours, and the kids in their colony all gathered in the evenings on the main street of the area to play games and go around cycling through the colonies.
Mitra hadn't met all of them, and even if she did, she had always been good at forgetting their faces. When she spotted Sashi, she assumed he was one such neighbourhood boy, thereby making her feel relaxed and involve him as a friend in her game of disrupting a painting.
Sashi studied her easy manner and mused to himself that she must be a different species of human being other than the ones he usually ran into. She was too sweet. He smiled to himself, elated for the first time in his life and started painting the wall. He would steal glances at her as she spoke and painted.
"Hey!" the scream was hurled at them from a distance. Both Mitra and Sashi snapped into attention, frightened and stiff. They turned in the direction of the interruption to see the painter returning in stride, almost sprinting towards them.
Sashi's instinct was faster as he threw his brush to the ground, prepared for flight.
"Run!" Mitra squeaked and dropping her brush, she sprang to the other side of the road, leading a rather confused Sashi who had been pondering on how and where to escape. He followed Mitra without any thought, as if he was being pulled by her.
He had played with other kids during his short stint at school, but that had been long back and a prolonged captivity at home had stumped his social skills with fellow children. With the little girl, however, it felt different. He felt included and important enough.
They scampered across a couple of other streets, the fastest they could to get out of the painter's reach. Mitra clearly knew her way around. She slowed down and stopped as they reached an intersection of three small lanes. Sashi followed suit, stationing himself in front of her.
She beamed at him. "That was fun!"
Sashi didn't respond. He simply stared at her, wondering why in the whole world she was smiling at him so affectionately.
"I have to go this way," she said without any bother, pointing towards one of the streets. "My grandpa would be waiting. You will come out in the evening to play, right?"
The way she looked at him questioning innocently drove Sashi to lie to her with a nod, "Yes."
She grinned and said, "Then we will go out and check the church wall again in the evening. Bye!" she waved at him wholeheartedly and skipped away to her house.
Sashi stood there watching as she reached a two storied house and disappeared inside. He so wished he could come out in the evening again, a dream contradicting his reality of having to return home before his mother came in.
Maybe he could come again some other time and speak to her. There was no way he could get a playmate as pure and bright as her. He returned to the empty house that scared and scarred him and couldn't come out for the next two days.
Mitra looked out for him that evening when she stepped into the gathering of the neighbourhood kids. She assumed he might be near the church and dashed to the location accompanied by a couple of her friends whom she promised to display her artwork for.
The boy was however not to be found anywhere. Mitra wondered about him for a while and then got distracted by her other friends and their games.
Two days later, Sashi broke out again with a destination in mind. He went straight to Mitra's house. Entry into the house on his own accord wasn't feasible, and so, he waited nearby in the shadows of other houses, keeping himself away from public scrutiny.
An hour or so later, a relatively older man stepped out holding Mitra by her hand. She was excitedly saying something to him, her head raised up as much as she could to look at the man's face.
"Then will you take me to the park too, grandpa?" she was asking chirpily.
"Yes, of course," her grandfather replied with a smile.
Sashi didn't dare come out of his hiding. He watched longingly as the duo made their way down the street. The little girl let go of her grandfather's hand and started jogging at slow pace. Her grandfather called after her adoringly to be careful with her steps.
Sashi noted her name as her grandfather called her "Mitra!"
He kept repeating her name in his head as he watched them disappear at the end of the street and made his way back to his own prison of home.
Mitra's house became Sashi's frequent destination after that. He didn't know that Mitra didn't live there, that she had come to the town for just visiting her grandparents and that she had left the town to return to her actual residence across the country.
And so, he kept waiting to see her one day.