The World is a Beautiful Place

Paper Planes
by Aditi Kothari
And to think it all started with dehydration. This past summer, I was in India with
my family; we had just finished touring the country. As we stood in the crowded
Mathura train station, the temperature read approximately one hundred and fifteen
degrees. Perfect, just what I needed. Suddenly, my grasp on my surroundings loosened,
and my vision began to blur. I propped myself up against the wall to make sure
I didn’t hit the ground. All this time, my mother frantically tried to steady me, pouring
water on my face with one hand and fanning a newspaper with the other to cool me
down. That’s when we both saw them for the first time.
I slowly slid along the side of the wall to preclude my fall. When I put my hand
down on the ground to steady myself, rather than feel the smooth texture of the concrete,
I felt a bag. Looking to the corner I was near, I saw another knapsack beside a
baby, probably not even six months old, lying down on the station platform with a tattered
piece of cloth separating her delicate body from the hard, dirty ground. All she
wore was a tiny undershirt; from the waist down, she was exposed. Her sister, about
five years old, was in a similar condition. From their home in the corner, they watched
Jenna Mrozinski
the bustling world around them, hundreds of people pushing and shoving to cram onto
a single train. Even though this image of two defenseless children caught in the center of mayhem was disconcerting to us, all
they needed to see were the familiar faces of their mother and each other to feel protected. My mother turned to me, “Dee,
look at the difference between you two! You’re both in the same station, heat, and horde, but while she is impervious to everything,
you can’t even support your own weight!” As much as I hated to admit it, she was right. But this comparison didn’t end
our captivation with the sisters; we just couldn’t make ourselves look away.
Suddenly, we watched the mother walk away, leaving her five-year-old as the only guardian. Immediately after, when the
baby started to cry, her concerned sister lifted her off the cloth and offered her cheeks and chin to the baby’s mouth. The baby
seemed to recognize the game as she tried to latch onto her sister’s face. Both of them started laughing and I felt myself smile.
Then we saw the older sister gently put her sister back down and run off to see where their mother had gone. Simultaneously,
once she was out of the safety of her sister’s arms, the baby started to cry again. Her sister rushed back to her and the same
episode occurred a couple of times. Every time the older sister returned from her search, I could see the anxiety building on
her face, not knowing where her mother was. My mother and I looked at each other in earnest every time she returned alone.
The third time, she came back fully transformed, the trepidation wiped off her face, relief and excitement taking its place. As I
felt every muscle in my body relax, I turned and saw their mother walking towards them with two slices of bread and one bowl
of soup for the three to share.
Watching how content they were with so little evoked a great deal of emotion. Quickly turning my back to my mother, I let
the silent tears fall. Since she had seen India’s poverty for twenty-five years, I assumed she would think I was being unnecessarily
sentimental. I took a few moments to compose myself before I turned back around, and when I did, I couldn’t believe
what I saw: my mother had been crying the whole time. As it turned out, this was a unique situation that neither of us had ever
witnessed before. It wasn’t that we had never seen people living on the streets begging for money before, but it was the fact
that this family wasn’t begging that pierced our hearts. Although they didn’t have adequate clothing or a roof over their heads,
they had each other.
The whole time I was crying, I was thinking of ways to help their family and about how unfair life is. Here I was, waiting to
board a first class, air-conditioned train cart for a few hours, while the family lived in that insignificant corner of the train station
every day of the year. My mother then answered my unspoken thoughts, “We should give them whatever we have.”
Reaching in her wallet, she took out all her money, not caring whether it was in dollars or rupees, and told me to give it to them.
Without hesitating, I took the money, tapped the mother on her shoulder, and said in Hindi, “This is for your daughters.” Wiping
away yet another tear, I walked back to my mother and hugged her, realizing that the people you have in life are more important
than the things you don’t have.
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