Purple Girl

When Cara's Mother said she was taking Cara on a trip to India, Cara had protested and said that she would prefer to go and stay with her friends in Hastings than go to India. Her Mother said that she should be pleased to be going to such an exciting, far away place, but Cara wasn’t convinced!

When you are eight years old all you want to do is play with your friends and eat ice cream. But what Cara was to learn in this far away place was better than any new flavor of ice cream could ever be. Cara protested at having to leave her three foot tall ‘Winnie-the-Pooh’ at home, moaned at being woken up at 6am, groaned all the way to the airport and positively pouted as the plane took off.

The air stewardess smiled sweetly as Cara and her mother left the plane at Bombay airport, Cara pulled her very best sulky face and followed her mother through the door to this India, this far away place. The heat hit Cara straight away and she decided there and then to turn round, get back on the plane and go and stay with her friends in Hastings. Let her mother enjoy India alone!! She felt her mother tighten the grip on her hand and screwing up her eyes against the bright sunshine Cara huffily followed her mother. She was determined that if she had to be in this place she was going to hate every moment of it!
After what seemed like forever, the man finally stamped their passports and they collected their luggage. Out into the heat once more. A whole gaggle of men in blue shirts were trying to take their bags from them and guiding them towards taxis. Cara’s mother said ‘No’ very firmly and walked towards a man holding a sign which read ‘Mrs. Craig and Daughter.’ The man instantly gave a huge smile and took the bags from Cara’s mother. The little man with his big white teeth and sparkly eyes introduced himself as Raju and said that he would be driving them to their hotel. Cara pouted and seethed at him whilst he chattered away, leading them through the crowds and what seemed like a huge ocean of taxi cabs stretching as far as the eye could see.

Bags in the trunk, Cara and her mother safely in the back seat and they were on their way. Looking out of her window Cara saw what seemed to be complete chaos. Cars, buses, taxis, bicycles, motorbikes and these funny three wheeled vehicles her mother told her were ‘auto rickshaws.’ Surrounding all of these was what looked to be a billion people. Men dressed in shirts, women in trousers, men in what looked like pyjamas, women in saris and children in brightly colored clothes. Through all of this, what stuck in Cara’s mind when they finally reached the hotel was the little girl in the worn purple dress who was walking in between the traffic, looking in through the window. She was touching her fingers to her lips then reaching out to the people in the cars. As the girl had neared their car Raju told them they should close their windows. Cara’s mother explained that the girl was a beggar and that they would see many of them during their time in India. Cara asked why, if the girl was hungry, shouldn’t they give her some money for food? Her mother said that the girl would probably not be allowed to keep the money as it was very likely that an adult would have made her beg, then would take whatever she got. Cara felt confused and angry that her mother had brought her to this far away place to show her children who were hungry, but whom you were not allowed to help.

Their hotel was in an area of Bombay called Marine Drive, which was decorated with thousands of lights and had shops and restaurants to suit everyone! The hotel was called The Sky Palace and with a name like that Cara had expected a grand hotel with a movie star style bathroom complete with lights around the mirror.
Annoyed once again with her mother Cara threw herself onto the double bed that they would have to share and looked at the small, dark room with it’s noisy fan and dingy bathroom. Her mother was now ignoring her foul mood and was unpacking their belongings. All the time she chatted away telling Cara all about the beauty of Bombay, the ancient sites they would see the following day and the gems you found when you rubbed away the top layer of dirt. ‘I didn’t see any gems today’ thought Cara. Thinking that her mother had brought her to this place and was now trying to make this chaotic, busy, dirty city sound exciting. It wasn’t going to work!

After they had showered and changed Cara and her Mother left the hotel in search of somewhere to eat. They past people trying to sell them all manner of things from flower necklaces to maps on India to clothes and shoes. Cara’s mother hurried her past the sellers and steered her away from the stray dogs that lay sleeping. Cara was amazed by the amount of adults she saw sleeping on the pavements too. She couldn’t imagine what it was like not to have a home to go to or a comfy bed to sleep in.

Many of these street people were still awake and as Cara and her mother walked past they held out their hands or called out to them for a few rupees. Cara noticed that they didn’t often call out to other Indian people who walked past and her mother explained that because they looked like rich westerners the street people thought they were more likely to give money than other Indians. Cara looked puzzled and asked her mother how these street people saw them as rich, when they weren’t. Cara’s mother explained about exchange rates, where by one English pound can be worth up to eighty rupees and how eighty rupees could feed one Indian person for almost a week! Cara understood now that to have one hundred pounds in India made you a rich person, but to have one hundred pounds in England would only just buy food for one week!

Cara pressed her mother further. If they were rich in India then they could surely give these people some money?! Her mother couldn’t answer and led Cara into the nearest restaurant.

After they had eaten they had to go back they way they had come to get to the hotel. Past the sellers and sleeping dogs and the street people. This time though there was an extra person asleep on the street, the young girl in the worn purple dress that Cara had seen earlier in the traffic. She was sleeping alone, no mother to hold her or father to protect her. Cara felt so sad for this young girl who looked no older than Cara herself. She hoped that she hadn’t gone to sleep hungry.

The next morning when Cara awoke the sun was already high and the room already hot. After a quick breakfast they left the hotel and met Raju the taxi driver who was going to show them the sights of Bombay. They spent a hot day in the taxi stopping at Hindu Temples, Muslim Mosques and they even visited the place where Mahatma Ghandi lived and the memorial to him. At 5pm they trudged back up the stairs to their hotel room, hot, tired but having had an excellent day.

They left the hotel earlier than the night before, as they wanted to eat and get back early to sleep. Past the sellers, the sleeping stray dogs and of course, the street people. On the way back from the restaurant Cara looked for ‘Purple Girl’ as she now thought of her, but she couldn’t see her anywhere.
As Cara drifted off to sleep that night her thoughts were with ‘Purple Girl’ and in the hope that she was safe and had a full stomach.

The next day Cara and her mother left Bombay early. They had many places to visit in just two weeks and were on a very strict timetable to get from one place to another. First they got on another plane which took them to Delhi which Cara thought was even noisier and dirtier than Bombay. Having spent one day and night in Delhi seeing the sites, they traveled on to a place called Agra. Here they saw the magnificent Taj Mahal, which even Cara had to admit was very beautiful! They drove on through Jaipur where they spent some time at a building called The City of Winds, which was built by a Maharaja in 1799! Finally they stopped in a peaceful town called Alwar and shopped in the colourful Bazaars. With the last of the rupees in her purse Cara bought a delicate necklace of amber and silver. It was the most beautiful thing she had seen in the whole bazaar! The lady she brought it from was from Rajastan and she wore a colorful dress of red and blue, sewn into which were literally hundreds of square and circular mirrors. In her nose and ears she wore the biggest earrings that Cara had ever seen and she had bracelets up to her elbows on both arms. Cara was a little nervous of her at first, especially when the woman took the necklace and kissed it. She looked up at Cara and said that she had blessed the necklace and whoever wore it would have good luck.

In the evening Cara and her mother drove back to Delhi to catch their flight to Bombay and then home the next day. By the time they arrived it was getting late and they were hungry, but they decided to shower and change before they went to eat.
As before they walked past the sleeping stray dogs and street people. Cara’s Mother wanted to buy a gift from the street sellers. Cara was hungry and wanted her dinner which she said very loudly and often to her mother as she haggled over prices.
Out of the corner of her eye Cara caught sight of a purple dress. She followed it down the street, but then it disappeared. Walking a little further on Cara glanced down a side ally and there was ‘Purple Girl’ crouched down eating some bread. Approaching slowly, holding her breath Cara watched the young girl with her tangled hair and bare feet ravenously eating her food.
The girl looked up and saw Cara and at first she seemed scared, but after a pause she beckoned Cara over. Cautiously Cara walked the last few steps and crouched down opposite the girl. Cara in her smart cut off trousers and trainers and ‘Purple Girl’ in her worn dress and bare feet. Total opposites. But, when Purple Girl looked into Cara’s eyes, the reflection was the same. The reflection of a child.
Purple Girl looked deeply at Cara, then pulled off a lump of the bread she was eating and held it out to her. Still holding Cara’s gaze, Purple Girl spoke in broken English,

‘Small money. Big Heart.’

Cara was taken aback by the kindness shown to her by this homeless, shoeless, parentless child and dug in her pockets for some money, but she had spent the last of it on her beautiful necklace.
Cara ate the bread and as she got up to leave, took off her necklace, kissed it and fastened it round Purple Girls neck. Purple Girl looked at her in amazement. Cara smiled and showing her empty pockets said

‘Small money. Big Heart – we are the same.’

Purple Girl smiled back and Cara walked away.

When she got back to the street there was a commotion going on. She heard her name being called by two or three people. She followed the sound until she saw her mother. Her mother hugged her tightly whilst shouting at her for wandering off. Cara tried to explain, but her mother was crying now, pleased to have her safe.
They walked the rest of the way to the restaurant and ordered food. Whilst they were waiting for it Cara’s mother asked where her necklace had gone. Cara looked up at her and simply said,

‘Some gems have to be rubbed harder before they shine.’

Her mother looked at her enquiringly, but Cara just smiled.

Written by Jemma Sadler, July 2004