Skip to main content

Goodbye forever

Yesterday, I went to a shop near my uncle's house to buy groceries for my aunt. The shop which was reasonably a big one, was surprisingly manned by a very young and talkative kid.

He started conversing with me as if he had known me for ages. He was continuously talking about cricket and asked if I was following the t20 world cup. When I said I only watched test cricket and stopped watching that too, of late,  he had a look of someone talking to an alien. Said he liked Dhoni and I was also surprised when he started rattling about the spot fixing controversy. Going by his size,  I thought he was wasn't aged beyond 9 years. But then, when I asked if he was going to school, he said he was now in sixth standard. Only then I realised it was the summer holidays for him.

I was done with the purchasing at the stores and  enquired if there was any shop,  nearby, which sold milk. He immediately said, "We sell milk too" (with an expression of how could I not know). I confessed, I was from a different locality and had come to my uncle's place and didn't know much about the area.

Gave him the money, he ran home and got me the change. I chatted with  him for a couple of minutes about his schooling and cricket and said bye to him and was about to start the bike, when he innocently asked, "You are not going to come here next time, no?"

I knew, perhaps, I wouldn't visit that shop again. But I didn't want to disappoint him. He perhaps asked that question very casually, or not. But to me, who had come to the shop only minutes after saying goodbye to my uncle's dead body, it sounded very differently. Lied to him and said, "No, I might come again."