Out of sight

Somewhere amidst the crowd
You see;

Those tobacco stained teeth
Don’t shy away from smiling;
Those jaundice yellow eyes
Don’t wink at you once, but twice;
Those copper bronzed hair
Don’t dare to go unnoticed;

But,
By the time you catch more than a glimpse
You notice;
Not the teeth, not the eyes
Nor the weird hairdo;

Cause now, he stands in front of you
In full view, zooming in at you;

Smaller than a dwarf
He wears clothing not fit for one;
Tucked from here and pinned from there
Squalid enough to leave behind a stink;

His skin, no less than a snakeskin
Sufficed enough to hide his skeletal;

Least bothered about what one may think
He yells out loud, urging you to buy his hair dye;
His voice is hoarse
The stained teeth explain why;

You try to sympathize
With eyes you empathize;

But before you know, he cuts through the crowd
Vanishing from sight;

From head to toe in a complete state of pity
He leaves you to ponder;
Does he even eat once a day?
Or he breeds on tobacco to relieve his torment?

Questions like that intimidate you
Dare you to call yourself a victim again;

As your skin crawls, you see him off at the next station
Probably to catch another train;

You can’t help but look back at him
Till he goes out of sight again;

You revive
To understand what hit you so hard;
You introspect
To find answers that well up your eyes;

Those eyes had stories of survival
Those teeth had accounts of starvation;

His very appearance strikes back at you
Not as a casualty of child labour;
But, as a survivor
More so as a fighter;

He sticks in your head yet, screaming,
Out of sight, though, Not out of mind!