Zari

She rang the bell. A woman peeped from inside.

 

“Yes?”

 

“I have taken the permission of working as a volunteer here.”

 

“Come in and sit down.”

 

A few minutes later a lady came down. Her dress told that she was member of the organization. The other woman was most probably an ayah.

 

“You can come and go whenever you please.” The second woman smiled and left.

 

She entered the hall. It was filled up with small children. They all had one thing in common, various degrees of autism.

 

She sat down on the floor and those who could move slowly gathered around her. Some of them were extremely affectionate and love hungry. Some were moody and some did not wanted to be touched. They all needed a lot of co operation from the volunteers. Starting from dressing, changing them to feeding them.

 

She was a social reject. Her own family has thrown her out because she had no money. She had a roof on her head and food on her plate. No future, no hope. The very family members who were served by her have now become strangers. They tried to make her feel in every step that she was a burden to them.

 

She has lost every faith on human relationships and unselfish love. She stumbled upon this place by accident. She had plenty of free time so she decided to dedicate it there.

 

“So you are going to volunteer here?” the girl was measuring her from head to toe.

 

“All the sisters here love me very much. They even asked me to become a nun and join the organization.” She continued on her own.

 

Briti suppressed a sigh, “women just can’t get over their envy, can they? Even when they are in sacred places.”

 

“They always have to prove their superiority over others.” She thought inside. On outside she just smiled.

 

 

 

“Don’t pamper the children too much didi.” Zari said. “You will be gone after a few days and they will become nightmares for us.”

 

A month has passed already. The children have become a great admirer of her. Adding up to that Zari noted that the volunteers too liked her a lot. Thus she tried to prove her superiority by showing her authority over the children. The only reason that Briti was in that place.

 

The thing which infuriated Zari most was Briti’s shrugging her rudeness away. She might have been thinking Briti as a rival. May be she was scared that the sisters will ask Briti to become a nun.

 

A few months later Briti stopped going there, she never met Zari again but her strange jealousy and behaviour lingered in her heart for years.

 

In place of loving those orphans she acted like a despot, trying to push away every loving hand that reached out for them.