~ rich-poor machine ~

The excitement could be seen on Anto’s face as he jumped the compound wall and ran towards the bushes. Even though he was 10 years old he looked much older, thanks to the hard living conditions in the slums of Mumbai.

He couldn’t stop giggling as he neared the bushes and saw his classmates, Guru and Sethu, dressed up like never before, waiting for him. Guru was wearing a bright yellow T-shirt and blue jeans, the clothes fitted him well but looked as old as the boy himself; Sethu on the other hand was wearing a brown full sleeve shirt neatly tucked in and black trousers, the tip of a long comb exposed its head from his shirt pocket.

Anto went around the boys inspecting them; Guru was wearing a long belt and the loose end was dangling behind him.

Whose belt is this? Anto asked, pulling Guru’s tail

Brother’s, he replied

He bent the protruding part of the belt and pushed it back inside, making it invisible from outside.

Now facing the boys, he started speaking “The guard is not a problem unless you try something stupid. The first time they caught me because I looked like a beggar boy, the second time the machine alerted the guard who caught and slapped me; he said he would strip me naked if I went there again…”Anto paused for a second seeing the anxiety on Sethu’s face “…. It’s alright, you look good. The guard is not going to stop you, but the machine might. That’s why I asked you to bring money. How much do you have?”

“Sixteen” Sethu replied

And you….?

Guru pulled out a few currency notes from his jeans pocket “twenty…”

“That’s good enough” Anto said as he pulled out some coins from his pocket and held towards Sethu

“I have five rupees here, take this now and give it back once everything is over”

The three boys started walking towards the huge mall across the road, it’s 5 in the evening and there was already a huge crowd coming in and out of the main entrance. Anto, who was walking a few steps ahead of the boys stopped and turned around.

“Remember what I told you, no fooling around… I’ll wait here until you come back”

The boys nodded and started walking, as they reached the entrance they avoided looking at the guard’s face and stood in the queue before the metal detector. Sethu turned back to check whether Anto was still there; Anto gave a thumbs up sign. There were a few well dressed guys in front of them in the queue; the machine let them pass through. When Sethu went through followed by Guru, the machine gave a loud beep….

The boys stood dazed for a second, they looked for Anto, and at the same time a guard at the entrance was calling them towards his desk. Just then there was another loud beep, the machine also caught the girl who was standing behind them in the queue. She moved towards the guard near the desk to show her purse, just then the boys saw Anto signaling them to get inside….. and they did.

Walking towards the shade behind the popcorn vending machine kept outside the mall Anto breathed a sigh of relief. He had asked Sethu to count the number of cinema halls that are in the fourth floor, he never believed his friend who heard someone saying that there were 11 of them. How could that be possible?!

He sat on the floor behind the popcorn machine with his face resting on his knees; He could see people going under the metal detector one by one. He wondered how a machine could find out whether someone was rich or poor. Sethu had 21 rupees; still the ‘rich-poor machine’ caught him… How much money does one need to be called rich?? Maybe the machine is not all that smart, it did catch the boys, but it also caught the girl. She had to go to the guard and let him check the money she had in her purse. She must have had a lot of money in her purse, say 200 rupees…

His eyelids started to feel heavy and the images getting blurred, the smell of pop corn made his stomach growl, maybe there’s a ‘rich-poor machine’ inside him as well..