As I step out onto the burning sand, the smell of stuffy summer air overwhelms me. However, walking a little further past the airport gates eases my ambiguity. The midday air sways to the rhythm of bird song, and the land is covered in blooming buds and glowing green shrubs. I see before me a scrawny, somewhat undernourished young boy; his bare feet crackled by the sizzling sun of Goa.
He is unlike anything I have seen before. I wonder why he has no shoes on, and how his baggy shirt had become so torn and soiled. Why is he without a mother or father, since you would think that a busy airport is no place for a lone child? I agonize that such a tall stature like me may just alarm the vulnerable youngster into eternal hiding. Nonetheless, it is not long before I realise how unfazed this child is by my presence- and our disparity, for that matter.
He takes my bags from underneath my palms, and begins to make his way down to the conveyor belt, where I hope to be greeted by my battered suitcase. I am reluctant to follow; not sure whether or not to relieve this weak being of the heavy load he has burdened himself with. I am now feeling slightly uncomfortable; watching as he continues to struggle on with my bags (that must weigh at least half of what he does).
At last, the youngster comes to a halt, and throws himself down next to a case that looked remarkably like my own. I am suddenly worried for his safety; surely, such a fall would have condemned this infant to great pain? I am wrong. He starts to giggle- a sound which makes me shiver. How can such a feeble and poorly child be so content?
The answer was lying in the domineering heat of South Asia: he had been granted life, and that was something that I’m sure not all of his siblings had been lucky enough to possess. I take his hand and place a small pile of Rupees I had gathered over my many years of travelling. The little one shrieks in delight, and skips off across the gleaming floors.
As she headed towards the archway of coconut trees, and out beyond the boundaries of ecstasy, the elderly photographer only hoped this adventure would be better than her last.
