#short story NO NAME

 

It was Christmas Eve and there was merriment going on to the loud beat of club dance music all over Mumbai. It was late evening, Jacob and his friends were ‘clubbing’ with beer and shouting at the DJ to increase the volume of the music to full blast.

“Hey dude, turn up the volume! Don’t you want us to have a ‘Merry’ Christmas,” said Jacob in a half drunk voice as he danced about the whole club.

The music was turned up to full blast while the young merry makers squealed in a drunken delight. Some were over by the dinner tables injecting cocaine into their young veins while some were tumbling upon one another in a mood for an orgy.

It was when the music was at its loudest and the stars were in the sky that the watchman of the club was awakened from his sleep. The watchman’s name was Akhil. He was middle aged and very poor. However, when he opened the door, he beheld a sight which made him thank the Lord that he was in a better position in life. Before him stood two beggars, one a middle aged man like Akhil himself who was dressed in filthy rags which were stained with dirt and grime; the second was a woman with a dark face, clad in a foul smelling sack cloth. Behind them was a white cow with the most beseeching eyes Akhil had ever seen.

It was the music that brought Akhil back to his senses. He immediately told the couple to move away from the club’s entrance.

“Please Sir,” said the man in rags, “let us rest in the open. Everyone has driven us away from their front yards because it seems we spoil the look of their beautiful Christmas decorations. I beg of you, let us stay for the night….my wife is with child and is in labour.”

The moistened eyes of the middle aged man in rags warmed Akhil’s heart, but Akhil was aware that under no condition was he allowed to keep beggars at the entrance. His job was at stake….but his humanity triumphed especially when he saw the pain on the face of the pregnant woman, who he now realised looked ever so young.

Akhil at once took out his cell phone and called his wife from their nearby slum. The woman hastened with a group of elderly ladies and guided the beggar couple to a nearby hospital….but the posh hospital refused them admittance on the basis of their clothes. In the end the beggar couple with their faithful cow, were taken to the slum with a lot of love and care by the slum dwellers.

It was nearing midnight when the cry of a new born baby boy was heard throughout the slum. Akhil’s wife was overjoyed as she held the enchanting looking infant in her arms.

“What shall we call him?” asked a little boy from the neighbouring shanty.

“That’s for the father to decide,” replied Akhil’s wife as she looked at the middle aged man in rags. The man merely answered:

“The boy will have no name, for he was forgotten and ignored on his own birthday.”