Free Homeless Bird by Gloria Whelan Page B

in the distance who I thought was Sass. I called out and ran toward her, only to find a stranger, annoyed by my cries. Even the rickshaw boy did not appear.
    That night I had the doorstep to myself, for the widow did not return. Just as she said, the door to the house opened and a bit of food was handed out, this time a chapati, which I quickly ate though a small child stood nearby watching hungrily. Afterward I was ashamed, for I still had some rupees, and the child had nothing.
    I knew that I could not afford a room, but wandering through the city I saw signs tacked to some houses, advertising beds. When I inquired, I learned that if I were to pay for both food and a bed, my rupees would soon be gone. After asking several widows, I found the government building where pensions were given out. There was a form to be filled out. Because of Sassur’s teaching I was able quickly to complete the form, all but an address. I could not say I lived on a doorstep off the Purana Bazaar.
    “You have not put your address down,” the official said.
    “Until I get my pension,” I explained, “I can’t afford a place to live. Can’t I pick up my pension here?”
    He shook his head as if the thought were beyond considering. “No, no. Pensions are mailed. Return when you have an address.”
    I tried everywhere to find work, but for every job there were a hundred seekers. For a week the doorstep was my home. When others tried to sleep there, I was not as generous as the elderly widow had been but selfishly chased them away. My rupees were nearly gone, and all I had was the doorstep and the bit of food tossed out to me by the hand of someone I had never seen. I would fight for the doorstep rather than give it up, but I knew that my hunger and my fear were making me into another person altogether, a greedy and coldhearted person I despised. I thought it would be Sass’s final cruelty to me, to make me be like her.
    I visited the temples: the Govindji, with its great hall and its row of columns like tree trunks and its high ceilings where neat rows of bats hung like small furry pennants. I went to the Banke Bihari, where there was a darshan each day—the curtains were opened for a moment to give a glimpse of the deity, which is a great blessing. In all the temples, I saw the widows chanting hour after hour. I admired their piety and envied the food the monks gave them in return for their devotions, but try as I might, after only a half hour of chanting, my mind wandered. I could hardly breathe for the smell of incense and the mustard oil burning in the hundreds of little lamps. I found myself stealing away from the temple, relieved to be out in the open air.
    I made my way through the bazaars and along the ghats of the Yamuna River, lost among all the pilgrims to the city. Each afternoon I returned to the railway station, not from any hope but out of habit and because it had become familiar. On the day I had spent my last rupee and thought that I must sell Tagore’s book, I saw the boy with the rickshaw again. I tried to get his attention. Thousands of people had hurried by me without so much as a glance. I longed to exchange a word with someone who recognized me.
    At first he had eyes only for the passengers who had just gotten off a train. When no one climbed into his rickshaw, he squatted down, waiting for his next chance. Hesitantly I went over to him. He gave me a quizzical look. I guessed how untidy and dirty I must appear after a week of sleeping on the doorstop. “You still here?” he asked, but not unkindly. “I’ve seen you before. When are you going to give up coming to the station?”
    “I have no other place to go.”
    “Well, you shouldn’t stay here. There are bad people about this station who look for young girls from the country.”
    I could not keep from telling him my worries. “I am tired of sleeping in the street, and my rupees are all gone.” I bit my lip to keep from crying.
    He looked at me. “Don’t