Whenever someone asks me to describe India I usually say “You either love it or hate it, there’s no in-between”. India is a place where joy and sadness walk hand in hand. This story illustrates both the sadness of the place and also the resilience of the people who live under the poorest conditions there.
Sunday was a day off at the Britannia Amritraj Tennis Scheme (BAT). After a long week of training both the boys and the coaches were glad of a day away from the courts. I really enjoyed Sundays because it meant a sleep in, buffet lunch at the Connemara Hotel and a walk home through the tree lined streets.
There was one Sunday when I remember spending the morning down at Marina Beach with some of the boys flying kites. Kite flying is a favorite pastime for boys in India, but particularly the kite fights between boys. The tradition is that boys coat their lines with a mixture of finely ground glass and a type of wax-like glue. The strategy is to cross your line over your opponent’s line, cutting it before he cuts yours, and win the dog fight.
This Sunday there was a large group of young boys from the nearby slum playing with us. Every time one of the lines was cut the kite would float down the beach some considerable distance with the wind, and would be followed by boys of all sizes racing to collect it. This was ok by us because the alternative was us retrieving the kite ourselves! On this particular day one boy was always first to the kite and we would reward him with a few rupees. As the day wore on most of the other boys gave up and went home but the “Kite Boy” continued to stay, and collect his reward!
When it came time to go home we were all getting ready to enter the van, changing sweaty shirts and brushing sand off ourselves. I changed my T-shirt and handed it to the “Kite Boy” as a gift. His eyes lit up when he realized he was being given my shirt, a white one with a large tennis logo on the front. Finally we were in the van and on our way home. Eventually we forgot all about the “Kite Boy”.
On normal training mornings we used the beach for fitness runs before the boys went to school. Starting at 6:10am we would run the length of the beach and back again, quite a tough run in the soft sand. I was to be leaving India in a short time after 2 years coaching there. There wouldn’t be too many more of these runs left for me.
On this day we had completed our run and were preparing to journey back by van to the BAT house. As usual, there were several beggars around the van with us asking for money. None of us took money to the beach for runs so we were ignoring them and while some of the boys were completing their stretch, others had already boarded the van. I was just entering the van when something that was said made me stop. One of the beggars had grabbed my attention. I turned to the boy and asked “what did you say”? He repeated “my friend sir, he asked me to tell you”. “Who is your friend” I asked, still confused. “You gave him a T-shirt sir”. Then I remembered our day on the beach almost 10 months before. The Kite Boy who had been our companion that day and had worked so hard to retrieve the kites. “My friend sir, he told me to come and tell you” the beggar boy repeated. “Tell me what” I asked. “He wanted me to tell you he was dead” the boy said proudly, knowing he had my attention now and that I was interested in what he was saying. I froze on the spot, “what do you mean, tell me he’s dead”? I asked. “When my friend was lying in bed dying he asked me to find the foreign man who gave him the t-shirt and tell him he was dead”
When I did finally enter the van the boys could see something was wrong. My face must have been white. Several of the boys asked me what was wrong. After I explained what I had been told, and they had remembered the kite boy all that time ago, they too fell into silence, stunned by the sadness of the story.
Even today, when I think of the small boy who had so much life on the beach that day I feel deep sadness. But perhaps the saddest part of the story is that my one act of kindness concerning an old, sweaty t-shirt was remembered as a highlight in that boy’s life. So much so that he had asked his friend to find me one day and recount his last days alive so that I would know that he was dead.
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