The Boy With The Basket (a short story)

Forty ninth-graders from thirteen different countries sat in a dirty, crowded, touristy part of Rishikesh, surrounded by religion and commerce and retail spirituality. Stalls selling hot Maggi and bread omelettes, Uncle chips packets and Maaza. Stuffed toy zebras and battery operated hand fans. Calendars with gods and goddesses. And all with Mr.Jason and Ms.Sangita trying to make us feel like this was important or meaningful and enriching for a bunch of fourteen year olds. 

So so many people. Chanting and praying and singing. And everyone who wasn’t wrapped up in religious fervour seemed to be devotedly trying to sell us something. Tea. Snacks. Guides. Souvenirs. Salespeople of all shapes and sizes and ages selling materialism to make the spirituality more interesting. 

Bored with the banality of it all, Mansher picked up a pebble and threw it across the surface of the water. It skipped across the surface… once, twice… before sinking below the surface. Then Ranjeev did the same. And then Aryan. And suddenly the stifling boredom lifted, as some of my classmates created a world of our own, a world of stone and water and elemental play.

I noticed the boy with a basket on his head looking at us. He was younger than us. Maybe ten or eleven. He had been trying to talk to some of my classmates, convince them to buy something. But too shy to plead, and too innocent to cajole, a fluttering moth drawn to the light of the big city kids but afraid of being burnt. 

The boy stared at Mansher and Ranjeev and the rest of the boys skimming stones across the water and walked towards them. He put down his basket and looked around until he found a pebble he liked. Dark and flat but with curved edges, not sharp. He felt it in his palm. The weight, the smoothness. Then in one fluid motion, he pulled his arm back and whipped it forward, releasing the stone in a smooth, true arc until it touched the surface of the water like a fleeting kiss that hints at so much more and then skips away. Five times the pebble skipped across the water, a flirt, a tease, a promise.. until finally it surrendered itself into the arms of the river. 

The boy smiled. And then he looked at us. And suddenly the smile broke into a grin.

As he did, the sun hid behind a grey mountain cloud.

The boy glanced up at the sky. And then down at the basket at his feet. 

He bent down. And he lifted the basket to his head. And he remembered. And then the child went back to his day. 

One step, one sale at a time. 

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(With thanks to Aarin Blah for his gifts of empathy and observation)