Something that made me smile! :)

In small cities, bus travelling is irksome! Buses are filled with people pushing each other. Here's an incident that took place while I was travelling alone from Lucknow to my home town. 

There was so much of traffic on the way and the bus was stuck from the last 15 minutes. It was summer and I always kept a water bottle with me that had ice that would not melt until my class hours. This was the trick told by Maa, which I called magic as a kid. She used to wrap an icy frozen bottle with a towel hanky and tied it with a poly-bag around it. This way I had cold water till the end of the day in my school days.

So, in the bus, I was sitting on the front window-side seat. Suddenly, I heard someone shouting 'Paani thanda paani' I looked down to see, it was a boy, barefoot, not more than 8, selling water bottles. He was continuously yelling and looking for someone who would buy a bottle from him. Though I had my own bottle, feeling pity, i took one from him. It was for 25 Rs. I gave him thirty. He asked ' Didi paanch rupay nahin hain?' I nodded and asked him to keep those 5 Rs for himself. He looked up and smiled. 

The bus started to move slowly as the traffic started gradually clearing up. I felt good, but what made me feel even better was that he came running towards the bus for returning those 5 Rupees. I told him to keep them for him and his reply overwhelmed me, "Nahi didi, pachis ki hai, pachis hi lenge". Handing me those 5 Rupees he went back running & shouting 'paani, thanda paani' again!

Often while travelling to Lucknow, I looked for him in the same area, but never got to see him again!