

A little boy drawing under a tree is a picture by itself. He is lost in his own world of nature, oblivious to the challenges around.
Enjoy Morning Meanderings Season 2 with your hot cuppa and cookies. âđȘđ
My morning walks have yet to fall into that familiar old pattern of meeting my old labourer friends’Â families (families that had come from far off lands, leaving their homes and hearths to build swanky houses for the well-heeled)
My eyes would light up on seeing the happy toddlers flashing toothless smiles at me, some tinier ones flailing their tiny arms in improvised cradles made from discarded bedsheets. The relentless building of concrete structures was still on, but I really missed the migrant labourers who had become my pals. Not one of them had come back after going back to their villages. I missed their myriad stories of their villages.
Everyday new buildings were being built, malls and villas, multi-storied apartments and showrooms, but the unsung heroes behind these success stories crept out from their shanties, groggy with sleep and in the evening were back in their shanties â once again creeping into their threadbare invisibility cloaks.
Such thoughts churned on in my mind, as I heard something.
Some distance away, a perky koel went into a string of koohos. I tried to look for the hidden songster, but could only hear the musical persistence, but not see the bird.
But I did see a couple of tiny labourer kids groggy-eyed, pointing towards a particular tree, and beaming with joy.
The koel burst into more koohoos, in self-congratulatory joy, happy in the knowledge that it had made two kids happy and also shamed the sun into a premature emergence. The sun’s initial glare of skulking ferocity was soon replaced by a beaming smile. Hidden in the dense foliage, the koel smiled too.
Morning Meanderings is a musings column by Santosh Bakaya
As I watched captivated, one of the tiny kids plonked down under the tree, pulled out a notepad and pencil and started doodling.
Unable to restrain my curiosity, I peeped into his notepad.
He had sketched a perfect koel with the strokes of a master!
The artist in the making looked up at me and smiled.
“Arrey, tum to kalakar ho (You are an artist)!” I remarked .
“Mujhey drawing kerney ka bahut shauk hai (I love drawing),” the ten-year-old said.
“To drawing hamesha kertey rehna (Keep on drawing always).”
He nodded vigorously and again smiled.
I had not been able to catch a glimpse of the hidden songster in the tree, but the tiny boy had made me glimpse it on paper.
My day was made!
I walked on as the koel continued trilling and the budding artist continued drawing clouds, flowers and trees.
The tiny artist under the tree had snugly settled in my mind, as I headed back home, highly enriched.
Click here to read all episodes of Morning Meanderings Season 2
Donât Forget to Revisit Morning Meanderings Season 1
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Such a beautiful narrative of the little budding artist threaded together in the poignant strands of a migrant labourer’s canvas. Loved it!
Thanks Vandita Dharni’
Wonderful, how you weave such an interesting and heartwarming story around ordinary everyday happenings. Who would have noticed the little fella and his ability at drawing.