We come into the world, live our lives and leave the world. Sometimes we live through events or incidents which raise the status of our daily inconsequential lives from mundane to meaningful. We might call these miracles or simply coincidences. For a brief moment we feel watched over and then in the race that we call life we move on and forget these moments or remember them briefly and marvel. Never or very rarely do we become a part of something on a cosmic level, it doesn't change the course of our lives in a direct way but we feel that the whole universe conspired to create that moment and though billions of people live in this world, we were the only ones who were able to witness this event like a private and exclusive viewing of a grand display. We are even luckier if we have someone to share this event with, to look into someone's eyes and see the wonder reflected! A confidant. That reminds us that what we saw was not a figment of our fancy imagination but a rare and beautiful gift.
Naseem, is a six year old girl. When I met her she was sitting on the charpoi with her mother and constantly clapping but without any mirth. Her hair was cut almost to her scalp. I was told that she was a miracle child, she had been suffering from severe acute malnutrition and her family and relatives had almost given up hope that she would survive but she had proven all stats wrong and was sitting right in front of us. Physically, she was on the mend but her mental growth had been irreversibly stunted. She did not respond to any movement, any gesture or sound, her mind was somewhere else... A little boy, hardly seven, sitting on the curbside on an otherwise busy junction but at 0100AM he seemed so out of place on that dark, deserted road. As we stopped at the traffic signal, on the road perpendicular to where he was sitting, my attention was drawn to his posture. His slumped back was towards me and as I watched, two cars stopped on the lanes furthest from him. He made an ...
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