The Song of Kahunsha Read Online Free PDF Page B

listen to the music. Chamdi takes his chance. He hoists himself over the side of the truck and lands on the street. But he is not used to jumping off a running truck, no matter how slow, and he loses his balance and falls backwards. He stays on the ground for a few seconds. Nothing is broken, he tells himself. Nothing is broken.
    The building in front of him is lit up. It is an old building, only three floors, but all of them have red and green lights, tiny bulbs that flicker on and off, travel in a line and even change directions. Loudspeakers on the balcony spill the best Hindi music he has ever heard. He feels he has chosen the right place. Where there is music, there is happiness.
    He sees a man lying on a cot with one arm covering his eyes. The cot makes Chamdi ask himself where he will sleep tonight. Perhaps some kind person will take him in and offer him a meal. He wipes the sweat off his face with his hand. The smell of the garbage has stayed with him.
    The music stops. The lights on the building remain, although they no longer change direction. They look like green and red stars stuck on the building. He wishes the orphanage could have had lights like these. At least there would have been something to look at.
    Chamdi is worried about getting food. He has not eaten all day. He missed dinner because he was in the prayer room and not hungry at all. He wonders what time it is, but then tells himself that it makes no difference. Ahead of him, a few people sit in a circle, on chairs and stools, and all of them are smoking. There are loud shouts once in a while, and the old man amongst them keeps coughing. Chamdi prefers not to go near them because he does not like the way they raise their heads each time they blow cigarette smoke, as if they have no respect for the sky at all.
    An apartment window opens and a blue plastic bag slowly floats to the ground. It lands on anauto rickshaw. Chamdi notices that the rickshaw has no tires. It seems old and abandoned. Its rusted metal body is rooted into the ground so firmly that it looks as though the rickshaw has grown from the road itself.
    A neat pile of cement tiles lay beside the auto rickshaw. The pile is quite high, and Chamdi sees two bodies asleep on the pile. They look like boys his age. It surprises him how comfortable they seem to be even though they are sleeping on a bed of stone.
    The cough of a car engine makes Chamdi turn. On the main road, a taxi has stalled. The driver is pushing the car with one hand, and has the other hand through the window on the steering wheel. The passenger, a man, is straining to push the taxi from behind, while a woman sits in the back seat. Part of her green sari is trapped in the door.
    Two of the men who were smoking notice the struggling taxi. They throw their cigarettes to the ground and walk towards the road. When they reach the taxi, the driver gets into the car and the two men push hard along with the passenger.
    Chamdi tells himself that he would surely help too if he were strong enough, if he had eaten. He limps a little as he walks, and lifts the sole of hisfoot to see that it is bleeding. He remembers that as he ran from the orphanage, he stepped on bits of glass. He hops towards a patch of light that spills from one of the rooms in the building. He sits on the ground in that light and examines his sole. There are a few cuts, and he can see the glass. He carefully removes the first shard, then counts the remaining ones—there are four more to go, and he has all the time in the world, but he is tired and hungry. He tries not to think of food. The glass distracts him from his hunger, but he knows that the moment he finishes extracting every piece, the hunger will speak to him again.
    He tells himself that he must be strong. He is ten years old, and he needs to find his father. It is a difficult task, so he will not let something as trivial as hunger discourage him.
    The building looks different in the morning, without the blinking