The saleswomen!

Fancy Bazar, Guwahati.

A day before Saraswati Puja.

If you’re a guy, you probably already know where this is going.

You're not there because you want to be. You’re there because you have to be...

You’re standing there, half-lost, half-bored, watching the madness unfold, girls excitedly comparing shades of yellow kurtis and testing which pair of jhumkas gives the right kind of goddess vibe for tomorrow.

I was one of them once. One of the guys, just following along, silent, distracted, slightly invisible in a crowd that couldn't care less.

The streets were packed. So packed I couldn’t see my own feet. People moved like water, fast and heavy, washing over one another.

And in that chaos......a pull.

Gentle. Barely there. On the little finger of my left hand.

I looked down. And there she was.

A little girl. Four or maybe five. Wearing torn out clothes. Bones pushing against her skin, dirt resting on her like second skin. In her hand, she clutched a small packet of cotton buds.

No words. No practiced sales pitch. Just two eyes, far too grown for her face, silently asking if I’d buy one.

I paused...

Processed....

And I bought it. Twenty rupees she said. Didn’t think twice.

It was only later, back in the hostel, I noticed the MRP: ₹10.

I smiled. Not out of insult, not out of pity. But out of something else. Something I still can’t name. Maybe the extra ten rupees wasn’t for the cotton buds. Maybe it was the price of that pause. 

That jolt.

That uncomfortable reflection.

Maybe it cost extra because… she didn’t know how to read, because her world didn't come with instructions. Just a handful of cotton buds and a life she never chose.

At that age, I didn’t even know what money meant.

It was something relatives use to give us in envelopes, folded notes that smelled of blessings.

And if someone gave me ten rupees and asked me to choose between that and a chocolate, I would’ve picked the chocolate every single time. Many of you might have related to it...

But she…

She wasn’t choosing between toys and toffees.

She was working.

At five.

No MBA in sales. No idea of the market. Not even the bare idea what's written on that packet!

Just a kid learning how to sell things before she learned how to write her own name.

People say parents are like God, because they give us life.

But when I think of her…When I think of thousands like her…

I don’t know what to believe.

She didn’t choose that life.

She was thrown into it.

By fate?

By her parents?

By a society too blind to notice her?

I don’t know.

And maybe, I don’t want to know.

Because it’s easier not to assign blame when you’re this helpless.

Easier to look away than to carry that weight forever.

But that day...While girls were buying things to look beautiful for a festival, there was one little lady who stood alone in the crowd.

Not searching for beauty.

Just trying to survive.

Some kids grow up confused between choosing ice cream or chocolate...

And some...

Some are out there, selling cotton buds in a street that doesn’t even know their name.

A packet of earbuds,

A tug on my finger, 

A silent story I'll never forget.