Three Innings

by Reenita Hora

First Innings

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” Gaia asked.

She dipped her plastic loop wand deep into the jar of soap suds and then oscillated it across the open expanse to release a ripple of bubbles. Dozens and dozens of them. In moments, the airspace between us was saturated with a swarm of effervescent bubbles, one more whimsical than than the next.

“A Person,” I responded with definitive confidence.

Gaia stood there, in the garden of the building compound, blinking at me through drifting froth in the hot haze of the Mumbai sunshine, attempting to absorb my words.

“What do you mean by that?” she asked. “We’re all people.”

On the face of it, I could not argue with her perfect logic. But to my four-year old self, the difference between people and a Person, was equally logical. The former were run of the mill, the thousands of you s, me s , he s and she s that thronged schools, playgrounds and railway stations each day. But a Person was someone else. Someone who you could pick out among those thousands. Instantly, because they were unique. And then you couldn’t take your eyes off of them, because they were special.

The vision was perfectly clear in my head. I just couldn’t articulate it in words.