The Lost Shoe

She was getting late and the bus ahead of her bus wasn’t moving a bit. It was hot and she was trying to look out of the large window of the bus as if looking out would mean an inflow of cool breeze. She noticed a family - a man, two women and two kids. No wait, there were three. One was a toddler, in his mother’s arms. The crowd on the sidewalk was chaotic, everyone trying to find a way to reach their destinations as early as possible. The lady with toddler tried to walk past a cycle rickshaw, and in the process brushed against another man walking in the opposite direction. The toddler was probably asleep; his foot got stuck and off came his shoe. She noticed the shoe fall on the ground. She wanted to shout out to the mother and let her know. And as it always happens, just then the bus started to move. She wanted to yell but she stopped. Perhaps she thought she was too sophisticated to be shouting out of the bus window, that too only for a stupid shoe which wasn’t worth more than fifty rupees. And that’s where it ended.

Elsewhere, in a small house in the slum area of the city, a child is crying because he lost his shoe. The mother is worried where she will get money to replace the pair of shoes. And the man is shouting at the mother, for being so careless.

If only.