Silent Words

“What’s your name?” I was talking with a girl, about ten years old, who lives her life not in a house but on the cold streets of our capital city. It was an as-much-as-possible informal talk.
“Bhabati” she replied. I asked if it was Bhagwati and she replied ‘no’.
“What’s your family name?” I asked her again.
She was pressing the index finger of her left hand in and out, between two fingers of her right leg. She didn’t answer the question. I waited for some minutes for her to answer, but she was silent. Either she didn’t hear my question or didn’t want to answer that, but she was hushed, most probably because of my question. It seemed to me as if she didn’t know the answer herself. I didn’t rather ask her if she knew her family name or not.
After she left my last question unrequited, I asked her to tell me about her family.
‘My family?” She looked up into my eyes and smiled a rather made up smile.
“I have my mother and my sister.” She told after a recess, contravening my speculation that she won’t answer this question either.
“And you don’t stay with your mother, do you?” I asked her again for she had told me earlier that she spends her twenty-four/seven in the streets of Thamel.
“I go to her sometimes when I am hungry and have nothing to eat” she replied. “But I don’t stay with her” she added.
“Does she give you food to eat?” I asked.
“Yes” she replied.
“And money?” I asked.
“Sometimes, when she has.” she replied, her eyes focused on my watch which just gave an alarm. It was 10 AM. She gave a look at my watch, then at my face and again at my watch. I felt her concentration at my watch and so asked her if she knows how to look time in a watch. And she quickly replied ‘yes’.
“So tell me what time is it now.” I took my hand toward her. She took my hand with her both hands and holds it to make possible a comfortable view.
“Ten” she replied in no time. Her face looked proud as if with some glory and showed her poise in her face.
“How did you learn?” I asked.
“Balu has a watch, I learned from him” she replied.
“Balu?” I asked.
“He is my friend.” was her short reply.

Bhabati lives in the streets of Thamel with her seven other friends, all aged between 5 and 13. She is dressed in rags, scruffy and filthy hair, and same kind of face. A slight look at her appearance visibly tells her story as well as her daily lifestyle. She is one of the many of those street, homeless and destitute children who has streets as there, we can say, everything. The youngest in her gang is her own sister whom she, along with the rest, calls Sani. The eldest is Balu who, as they say, is the leader of their gang. They meander in the roads of Thamel and New Road, mostly after foreigners, ask them for money and food. They don’t even step back to do many shorts of phony dramas to lug other’s attention towards them and get some money for them. Sometimes, while we look at their conducts on the streets and even experience by ourselves, we indeed feel it exasperating.
When I asked her about this, she just brought a naive smile in her dirty face.
After talking about many other things with her, I again pulled our tête-à-tête towards her family.
“What does you father do?” I asked.
“I don’t know”
“Does he stay with your mother?”
“No, I don’t know where he is.”
“And have you ever seen him?”
She was silent, resting her eyes on the carpet in which we were both sitting. Her eyes were focused on the structures of the carpet, firmly focused. I looked on the carpet and tried to find what exactly she was staring at. She seemed to be interpreting the structures of the carpet, which I think, whoever made it, must have wished to give the shape of leaves. But I was not sure what she was making out of those leaf-like structures. May be nothing; thinking about her mother, even father if ever she had seen him. I was not sure. But I was sure of one thing- she was certainly not happy with my question and she never wanted to remember her family. We both were silent for a long time. She was still staring at those structures and was pressing her index finger in and out of the fingers of her leg as before (that I think is what she does when she is unhappy and nervous).
“ Sorry Bhawati, I won’t ask anymore about your family.” I told her for I felt I’d upset her. She was still staring at those structures. I bent a little to look at her face and saw that her eyes were all filled with tears. My question made her cry. Yes she was crying and I was feeling really bad that I, my words, forced her to do so.
“Ok, stop crying now; we won’t talk about your family now.” I tried to make her settle down.
“I have never seen my father,” she told after she dried her eyes. “I don’t know where he is. My mother and her friend live together in a rented room at Ason.” She finished speaking about her family; she was still staring at the structures of the carpet though.
“What does she do?” I dared to ask once again even though I had told I wouldn’t, after I felt that she was feeling easy then to verbalize about her family.
“She is a prostitute.” She replied all at once, in an unwavering voice. But I did not believe what I heard.
“What?” I asked absolutely dazed by her reply.
“Yes, and I know it” she replied.
“Is that good?” I asked.
“It helps to make money” she replied decisively, her eyes were still focused at those leaf-like structures of the carpet.
I asked again if prostitution was a right job or not and she replied in the same manner that it helps to make money which helps them to feed themselves and her mother doesn’t have another alternative as well.
“Do you like all what your mother does?” I asked. She was silent.
“What do you want to be after you grow up?” I asked a mature question to a very young and of course seemingly juvenile girl, who is, in fact, is more mature than I am regarding her experiences and encounters in her life.
She finally looked into my eyes after very long filling her eyes with tears once again on my question. She spoke not a single word but starred into my eyes. Deep in her wide eyes, I found the answer of my question, which she didn’t want to answer and probably would never want to answer as well.