A young boy, hardly more than twelve years old stepped into the bus. On his left hand was a sarangi, the instrument of the famous gaaines of our country. It was more of a surprise when he, in spite of the plenty of vacant seats that stared at him, opted to sit on the bus floor, his back resting on a supporting vertical metal pipe of the bus. And he started playing the instrument.

The tune he played was not a familiar one. Though it was melodious. He faced towards the front of the bus and I was on the last bench.

A poor fellow, just stepped into the city of his dreams but with the other half of his dreams vanished in the so many drenches and the heavily polluted air and water in the city? From head to toe he was a stringy, dirty body inside a torn T-shirt reading, "Who's blue?" and a ragged Levi's without the e, and the s partly absent. He had no underwear underneath.

The great toe crushed to a black nail was obvious under the thin layer of dust that covered his right foot. The left was rather dirtier. They looked totally black with the falling sun in the sky veiled by a huge dark cloud. And still the foot maintained quite a bit of contrast with the bus floor. The shape was nature's art. Nothing on the feet. The sarangi continued. I heard the boy singing something like "Protect us lord Pashupatinath". The back of the bus was now the more crowded part and the boy came towards the back. His left hand holding the body of the instrument. He had a watch on the wrist. Seiko 5 Quartz. Made in Japan. It was a watch drawn on the wrist -looked like a blue Today's pen- the brand that advertises with a "Got to win Today".

The first person to whose knees he threw his hands didn't respond. From the man's knee he took his hand to his own forehead- that was perhaps the exact begging part. He repeated this a few times for the first person to whom he begged in the bus. But to no avail. He shifted himself to the next man who cared not to either. Then there were a few teenagers who were scolding him saying that he had made their clothes dirty. He had got nothing as yet. It was a general tendency. The bus stopped and the bus almost emptied. And the boy was still empty too. The conductor used harsh words to tell the boy to sit on a seat.

The honesty was remarkable. May be because he was still new in the begging business. And it's a business after all.