A child builds a community

RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE

When a big plot was bought by a businessman in our neighbourhood, we knew that he was going to build an imposing structure that would dwarf our lower-middle-class accommodations. He did build a three-storey house, apportioning the ground floor exclusively for car parking. The patriarch’s three sons occupied each of those apartments along with their families.

We thought the big house and its occupants would have no truck with us as they are preoccupied with their business concerns and are less likely to seek fellowship with us. The reason for such a belief was that they never invited us to the housewarming ceremony which was quite elaborate and lavish, glaringly confined to their clan.

They had further opportunities to be courteous and hospitable to us since we were subjected to high decibels of marble-cutting for one whole year. They had not made use of any of them.

Even as we were entertaining the thought that this rich people’s family is cut off from the rest of us, a baby was born in one of the apartments. That gradually connected an umbilical cord in the neighbourhood with the big house.

We didn’t know anything about the arrival of Sanvik, sometime back. But when his father started bringing him down from the third floor, every morning, to show him the activities around beginning with the first rays of the sun, we realised that he is already eighteen months old.

His father would ask him to say ‘hello’ to the milkman and the paperboy. Then would come Leo, the little puppy, along with Vishnu and Pranavi, the three-year-old twins, who were Leo’s constant companions. Sanvik is getting used to tiny Leo and the big Bebo, another dog of a different breed.

A cow comes with her calf every morning with the expectation of leftover vegetables and peels of banana and beetroot. This duo is never sent empty-handed. Sanvik is made totalk to them just as he gestures at the early morning walkers, who are, luckily, quite responsive to his body language.

Sanvik has successfully dispelled our apprehension that the big house is condemned to stand in eternal isolation in our neighbourhood of predominantly modest dwellings. He has further established the fact that vertical living is not for human beings whose inter-connected lives are meant for harmonious and horizontal existence.

Thank you Sanvik. May your tribe increase!