Phulshan

The children were delirious with joy. We had bought them a football. In the first indication of their natural sporting talent, the older boys kicked the football in straight, shooting arcs that made me fear for the neighbouring windows. Since the class of rag-picker children I teach with my assistant Laxmi has moved to a tin shed in my home here in Faizabad, I have to be careful of what family members and neighbours will say about our more abandoned efforts.

Anyway, the football reminded them that they were after all Bengali/Assamese kids, with football in their blood. So grateful were they for this gift, that they volunteered to trim our overgrown lawn the next day. "We will cut the grass and carry it away," said Hashim. "We will clear up the whole garden," said Al-ameen. I didn't really set too much store by their promises, but there they were the next day, all of them, busily trimming the grass, carrying away bricks and stones that littered their playing area. I had gone out and arrived to find them busy at work under Laxmi's watchful eyes.

"What hard-working children!" I exclaimed. "Have they cleared up all this?" I marveled, noticing a new boy, a small, dark child with chipped front teeth. "Who is this?" I asked, smiling at the boy. "He is bad!" said Razia. "Don't let him come to your school!" "What?" I said. "How can he be bad?" "He will say 'Randi!" said Ramisa. "Oh, he actually worked the hardest of all," said Laxmi. "He came along with them, and began working. I don't even know his name, but he's really sweet."

"No, he's not!" protested Mumtaz. "He's bad, and he won't come to your school, just see. You will give him a bag and books, and he will just disappear." "We'll see," I said. Losing a litle of our investment evey now and then with some child who drops out is an occupational hazard with our class, we have found. Families move to different neighbourhoods, parents decide that even the two hours their child spends away from sifting garbage is too costly for the family, children get too used to being unfettered on the street...there's plenty of reasons to lose our students.

"What's your name," I asked the chipped-toothed kid. "Phulshan," he replied, a name I had never heard before, and had to have repeated several times. "If he begins coming to school, I will stop coming," said Hashim darkly. I was perplexed. What had the little kid done to inspire such dislike among the whole class of them?

Over the next few weeks, Phulshan became one of our favourite figures among the littlest ones. Always dressed in the same drab grey clothes, he showed great happiness at being part of the class, got over his hurt at the other children's rejection of him, and seemed to be getting along fine. Then he missed school for a few days.

When we were going to celebrate Independence Day on the 15th of August, I told all the children to bring along every one who had ever come to our class. "Tell Phulshan!" i reminded them, and sure enough, Phulshan came to our Independence Day function wearing a new, turquoise blue vest and shorts. When I had the children fight with toy swords in pairs, he had to be dragged to the front, he was so shy at coming out before all the children. And yet, surprisingly, he fought with great finesse, almost like a true fencer. "A big hand for Phulshan!" I said, and all the kids clapped. When we were distributing sweets, his elder brother came forward and took some too. "Phulshan will attend regularly from tomorrow," he promised. "And I will come too."

But that was the last we saw of them both.