The biting morning cold jolts him from this drug induced sleep.His eyes are heavy and unwilling,but the cold won't let him sleep some more.And the hunger.(Hunger is an irritant that just won't go away). Plus the gum's running out,and there's nothing as terrifying as that.That final thought puts him into a full flight mode.See,food a guy can always do without.Even water,as long as there's enough to wash away the city streets dirt to the already choking river,a guy can do without too.But gum,that's a no, no.No gum, no life.Though only ten,he's as hard as a rock.He's made not even one trip to the hospital since he was born in some allay,and left there to die.But he heroically defied death then,and is doing so now,as well.Even when some ailment strikes,he just 'gums' it away.He sees the world as his enemy,its inhabitants as the coldest,meanest things ever made.With their fancy clothes and cars,they have no time for another street urchin like himself.He knows he does not belong.Even the government,rather than help,hides him,whenever they have to receive some global dignitaries.Then,he's locked up in the police cells like a criminal,until all the guests are safely away.But he feels this is in futility,since his pictures long found their way to the West,and regularly,these pictures grace charity events,held in five star hotels,as a bait to the rich,so they can give more to the privately owned charity organizations.
Humble Abode
Under the bridge,that he's now turned into his home,he can see the city above him choking in traffic.An endless file of unmoving machines,that the enlightened have willingly enclosed themselves into,as they go through the same, daily rituals of life,that they are either too afraid to challenge or get out of.Though the air is not exactly fresh under the bridge,he wonders who between him and they,is inhaling more harmful gases.Sitting up,he neatly folds the cartons that pass for his mattress,and stacks them away,where no other street urchin like himself,in search of rest,can spot them.Then he picks his black sack,throws it on his back and begins the uphill climb to the world above,to receive more battering by its inhabitants,if that is what will keep him alive for one more day.
The first garbage dump that he visits,offers him disappointment.Others got there before him.Some guys never sleep,he mutters,and heads for the next one,a few hundred meters away,where he gets to have his breakfast.His menu,is roughly one and a half crumpled chapati and bread.The mold,gives it a taste that has no name,for the giver of names is yet to eat fresh mold.Then he has to get rid of the invading army of insects that,having got there first,are reluctant to leave,and he results to force.Picking one insect he tramples it under his feet,like he was trampling on to some huge tortoise,that has its back armor in place.In his small mind,he's trampling on to the unforgiving world.Or to whoever sentenced him to it,for to him,life is a sentence,that has to be served,not lived.How else would you describe life,for someone who has to fight for food with mongrels and insects with no known names.Someone who has to live on what the world has thrown away.
Then he proceeds to stock up as much as he could,knowing not how the rest of the day would turn out to be.He's heard that street kids are to be enlisted into some government programme,and intends to go and check it all out,in the city center, where he's most unwelcome.He wonders how he's ever going to get there with all the cops milling around him,and the middle-class frowning wherever he passes by.Office clerks and other white collared folks, with just a few hundred shillings on them,will frantically go through their pockets when he goes near them,fearing that he might just mysteriously pick out their entire pocket.And this being the the only financial barrier between them and starvation they take no chances,cheap ties and matching coats not withstanding.
Having had his fill,this young boy, named Macha by his peers,is ready to take on the world,one more time.
The Venue
It would be around midday when he gets to the venue.There isn't much oxygen around since majority of the audience is made up of homeless kids,gum in hand,emitting strange odours.Some are so stoned,their eyes are bulging out of their sockets like red tennis balls.Speaking incoherently,they blab about this and that,but mostly its "msituletee". Clearly something is wrong here.And Macha doesn't know what.He edges closer,but his black sack is caught in between other equally black sacks,and the resultant friction produces an even blacker smoke.This is the one kind of smoke that bellows out of a source that has no fire.More like soot,but refined.The uniformed men in the dais cough and sneeze.The kids are having no such problems,and they conclude these polished uniformed men must all be sick.And they are partially right.When you ask a street kid to pay for anything else other than gum,you are sick.And that's what these men have just done.Though the recruitment to the government programme is supposed to be free of charge,the recruiting personnel has decided to charge some"processing fee",of a hundred shillings each.To this kid,a hundred shillings translates to a whole week's supply of gum.So someone wants a hundred shillings from them,they better have the equivalent quantity of gum.Or the transaction will be deemed null and void.And from the look of things,these pot-bellied officials do not seem to have that kind of entrepreneurial spirit.
May hem
So its true.Msituletee.Now Macha joins in the chants.Somebody,who looks like something someone dug up,throws something to the dais.The pot-bellied men jump to their feet,others cock their guns.But these kids have no idea what a gun is supposed to do,they being rather too stoned to care.They don't have the ability to develop that thing called fear.For some,death would be a welcome relief.They can even help you pull the darned trigger.An overweight man trips and lands onto some hapless woman,who lets out a scream that is swallowed up by the chants and the commotion.Their drivers,in an attempt to rescue their bosses,all make unsuccessful attempts to position their four by fours near the dais.One Landcruiser runs over a boy too stoned to participate in the protests,and who was unbelievably asleep on the tarmac.The lad jolts up to life and joins in the mayhem.The sound of approaching police car sirens,sound like reggae music to most kids,so they stay put.Black figures with blacker,old clothes pour onto the dais,screaming in Sheng,a language they made up.The microphone is yanked from its holder,and the culprit proceeds to clobber the master of ceremony with it,who in turn screams and jumps off the dais.Papers are torn and strewn all over the place.Somebody produces a matchbox and the rest clap,for the first time.And as the dais goes up in flames,the government officials scamper for safety,as cameras click away.Foreign journalists focus on the fire and the masses sprawled on the floor.Bottled water,meant for the officials,is in the urchins hands now,like prized weapons seized from a fleeing army after a fierce battle.Victory chants rent the air.
There is more celebration when the dais finally caves in,covering the government Coat Of Arms. But when the first shot rings out,that's the official announcement that the corruption culprits too, will have their defenders.Macha didn't even know that he was the one who stopped that bullet.When he too,like the dais before him,caved downwards,he thought it must have been from lack of a proper fix.He could see white,winged creatures beckoning,but thought it must have had something to do with gum,his faithful companion.But no.A minute later,life gently ebbed out of him,with a an ever so slight shudder and sigh.And with that,the whole city descended into chaos.
All because somebody somewhere,asked to be bribed,so he could do his job.Vehicles were set ablaze like refuse.Shops were vandalized,looted as robbers and pick pockets all joined in the mad scramble for the city.Briefly,hooligans came out of their holes,to take charge of the city,thereby exposing man kind as one huge volcano that has only managed to stay under because it hasn't found the right opening.A society of pretenders and actors who,if left free to be themselves,would instantly transform into destruction machines.
The Irony.
A week later,after another brief riot,Macha's body is collected from the city morgue by a government donated hearse.The corpse is inside a coffin worth half a million shillings,also donated by the government.How ironic,for it was a government bullet,that took Macha's life.After its officials demanded a bribe from street kids,so they could join some programme,sponsored by some Western nation.Nothing has been said of this programme since the riot.But there are reports in the media that even the overall secretary,had diverted half the funds to some off-shore Swiss account,thereby transforming it into personal wealth with a stroke of a pen.What a genius.Now women are naming their babies after her, in admiration.How the society glorifies that which it is supposed to shun.
Macha was laid to sleep eternally in a government cemetery,the same government that possessed no record of his existence,when he was alive.I guess,for some guys,only death will bring to life their existence.And that nothing short of a tragedy will make the system look their way.The rot,is so deep,now its taking away the lives of children,both wanted and unwanted,whatever that means.And as the officials present promise to "leave no stone unturned" (They said those same words about an assassinated, flamboyant minister,who's death is still a mystery,decades later)until they get the "perpetrators of this heinous act",one can almost smell the non-committal attitude,oozing out of this sick public relations debacle,that only succeeds in breeding more anger and resentment toward the system.
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