PICTURE WRITING

“Maa, can you please tell Dad to take me along with both of you?!” This was not some new demand for Gerrard.  For everyday,he kept mumbling these words to himself, in an embryonic posture,till he squinched his eyes to sleep. The four year old lad, peeped out of his tattered blanket  and gazed at the radium alarm clock in the shape of a mushroom. It was 11:00 pm but it seemed like Gerrard had ants in his pants today. “Granny! I don’t feel like sleeping..” he sirened  his grandmother as he heard her brushing past  against his bed. With  a limping pace, she slowly took him on her hunchbacked shoulder and sat on the floor.  ‘Wormie’,the tot’s dearest cuddlesome  toy was tucked into his hand by her, as she  caressed his face. “I know what is bothering you my child.Now, it’s all about us,be it the 25^{th "}

                   But how difficult it was  for a granny to pacify an estranged child, who had lost  his parents in the ruinous Nepal earthquake-exactly eight months ago from this 25^th   It was thirty minutes to the Yuletide and nothing seemed  Christmassy around. Not only did the catastrophe scar Gerrard for his entire life but also made him lose both his tiny legs. The crestfallen child, weeped faintly knowing that nothing could possibly make up for his loss. They had been spending listless months in a rehabilitation center ,run by an NGO. The looming silence was snapped off by a knock upon the makeshift-shack’s entrance. An anonymous man, with a package in his hand came forward and made Gerrard sit on his lap. His joy knew no bounds, when the person took out a pair of befitting  prosthetic legs and snugly fitted each into his lifeless limbs.In addition to this, a pair of ‘customized converse’ and a Thunderbolt tee were also a part of his complementary package! It turned to be a hay-day for Gerrard; the harbinger being – The UNICEF. From now on ‘hope’ was not just a four-lettered word for this petite outliver!