Airplanes

What is motivating me to write again? Today, it is the fundamental ''ailment'' that has unfortunately connected thousands of beating hearts with millions of hopeless hopes, daunting dreams, and that certainly is an unfortunate cause for a mediocre livelihood, unhappiness and a biased society. You can not disconnect yourself from the pain of being poor, neither can you pin your feet to the ground when overwhelmed with it.

I have known Shanti since 20 years now. She hails from an exceptionally poor family in my neighborhood. No, not poor. I'd say, She is not rich. Her mother is a maid servant who has been working at our house since a very long time, long before I was born. One thing that Shanti gets offended with is to see someone addressing her mother as a ''maid''. ''My mother is not a maid'', she would yell at me sometimes out of frustration when I insensitively yanked about her social status. I did that everyday, almost everyday. I continued it until my very own fate directed me to taste the bitterness of that state in which Shanti was destined to be, ever since she was born-that restless state of desperate longing for something irresistible.

"You know what, didi ji?" She smiled sheepishly and said one evening while we were watching airplanes frequently crossing the clouds that sheltered my house , making their way to the horizon. We watched it till the minutest of their glimpse faded away.

"I want to ride that airplane and take it to.... umm... to a place where there are good people, lot of money, a place where my mother need not work as a maid." She said all that in a go with several emotions sprouting and curling up on her face.

"You want to be a pilot?"

"What's that, didi ji?"

"A pilot is someone who flies the plane"

"Ah, yes! I want to be that. A pilot"

"But Shanti, you got to be well educated and skilled to be one"

Shanti knew what  I was talking about. She changed the topic quickly for she realized the ground beneath her feet and a pounding heart that really wanted to break through the ribs and set her free, emancipate her from all the aches. It did not take too long for her to realize her family's destitute. The very reason she could not go to school. Although, it did not affect our bonding. She was close to me, yet we were worlds apart. To her, I was somebody to look up to. To me, she was somebody to pour out my frustrations on, kill monotonous time with. Despite spending most of my time with her, I never felt comfortable introducing her to my friends. A pang of embarrassment remained beneath my bones. I had to maintain my social prestige. I had to masquerade the humane side of me behind the glittering social showbiz.

One winter afternoon, while I was passing my time playing crosswords, she comes and sits gingerly next to me. She was dressed up in  my old, ripped clothes, sweaters and a scarf.

"Didi ji, can you please lend me your room heater to us? Just for a day? I promise to return it back by tomorrow as early as I wake up. Also, please convey this message to bibi ji that my mother can not make it to work this week. I will, on her behalf"
Shanti did not learn to request. She begged. Everytime. And that quite often inflicted a discomfort in me, as well as a mean pride.

I brooded for a while.

"Shanti, is everything okay?"

"Mhm", she nodded, clinging her fists one over the other, her eyes fixed to the ground.
A moment of silence and soon she cupped her face in her palms and broke out. Before I could say anything, she started speaking , stammering
"Didi ji, I want to study"
My brain was still trying to recollect, process and adjust to things that were unexpectedly happening before me.
"Didi ji, Remember the other day we discussed about the airplane? And the one who rides it? I want to be that. Can you help me be one, please? Can you teach me? "
Her pleading gesture was creating a lump in my throat, for I could not find a convincing way to tell her that she should stop dreaming about it.
She , the very next moment, comes closer and clutches my hand into both her palms. It was difficult for me to make an eye contact. She was all in tears.
"Didi ji, I know you can teach me. I will do anything you say in return."

A woman should always help another woman. I heard or probably read it somewhere and it did make sense NOW. I pitied, but did not feel
"You can come from tomorrow, Shanti" I placed my hands on her shoulders to compose.
"Ouch" she cried
"What happened?"
Her face turned blue. My mind started making stories, and my subconscious wasn't ready to believe any of them
"Shanti? Can I ?"
"Didi ji, promise me that this is going to be only between both of us. My mother would not spare me otherwise. She would beat me. Again"
As I pulled the layers of clothes off her shoulder, my heart was beating fast, and faster. I could not stop myself from panicking until I noticed those black and blue swollen marks on her shoulders and back, some old scars , some fresh wounds. She quickly covered it all once again beneath the tattered , off colored  clothes.
The silence ached my heart. "How? Who did this to you, Shanti?", I asked

Her lips were gathering courage to speak her heart out. "Yesterday, it was my father"
"Why?"
"I insisted him to stop consuming alcohol. You know, Didi ji, he'd smack down my mother every night. He'd hit her like she is merely a stone. And if I interrupted, he'd beat me too."
Shanti's father was a cobbler. He was a hard working man. Perhaps, he, too, was torn between poverty  and accomplishment. Perhaps, he felt that he's failed as a man, a husband, a father, for there were days when family slept without a loaf of bread. He was in debt, already, and Shanti's mother contributed to cover up the amount with all that she got from her job. The last time I saw Shanti being beaten when she was 9. Her shabby clothes covered the wounds but not the pain. Her face reflected pretty much about her bruised heart
This was my only chance to wash away all those regrets of mocking her so callously. I should have taken this step long ago, but it never occurred to me until I saw the fresh cuts and faded scars on her tender skin. 

I could not spend too much time  grooming her. But, fortunately, she learnt to read and write before I left for my higher education to a different city. A year later, Shanti got married and moved to a different county. She took preliminary classes for school kids, so I heard. Her dream of becoming a pilot remained unfulfilled. The airplanes up above the horizon might be reminding her of that desire to fly. She'd sigh out of disappointment, but that feeling won't be as strong as before. She'd be happy to  see herself write all that she wants to. Her dreams, wishes, ideologies, incidents..and that certainly would help others like Shanti achieve their dreams.

Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world                                            -Nelson Mandela