Saturday, December 24, 2022

The Balloon

 

I was having tea at a roadside shop when something on the road caught my attention. When I tried to check what it was, I could see a big helium-filled balloon being carried by someone. The balloon was special, since it had a “balloon inside a balloon”, something I had never seen before! Then I tried to find out who was carrying it. Next few moments were bursts of one realization after another. 

It was a lady who was carrying the balloon. She was an overweight lady; really-really overweight. Then I realized that she was overweight like the new mothers who are taking care of newborn infants. She was carrying the balloon and nothing else and the big colorful balloon was floating in the sky. There was something different in the way she walked. What was it? I noticed that she was not looking up at all and had kept her eyes down while she walked, as if she was embarrassed or feeling shy. Her neck was also trying to sink. It became clear that since she was carrying a big special balloon all alone, she was feeling shy because she was a grownup lady and not a kid. It may be normal to see children carrying balloons, but not adults. So, to sum it up: she was a new mother taking care of a small kid, she would have gone somewhere and on the way back home she came across a helium balloon seller and hence she bought a big one for her child. She was walking feeling shy, for what will people think about her carrying a big balloon! She was also clearly excited imagining how her kid would react seeing the balloon and was trying to reach her home as soon as possible. Now, all this was too much for me, and I started getting tears in my eyes, and hence I looked away and moved on. But that special scene of an excited mother bringing balloon for her kid, got captured in my memory like a painting.

May God bless her and her kid.

- Rahul

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