Alms

I sit down on a red pleather couch to take break from the authentic Indian experience that has filled my last couple of weeks to get back in touch with my roots. “Oh Krispy Kreme,” I whisper before taking a bite of the shiny pastry. “Take me home.”

Yes, the diabetic arm of the American empire reaches even here. 

In the background My Chemical Romance and Keane blast from mounted speakers, taking me back to Southern California circa 2005 and I’m loving every second of it.  

It’s 8 p.m. and I’m meeting with Chris, one of the heads from Oasis Global, and our Communications Director, Reena, to go over a new media strategy. Unlike a lot of non-profits, which spend thousands on publicity and only hundreds on their cause, Oasis India has the opposite problem. So much is being done through their numerous community centers and rehabilitation homes but a combination of time constraint and the unwieldy English language means that most will never hear about it. This is where I’m hoping to contribute.

Chris leaves to order a coffee, offering to buy us a cup as well. I agree, knowing full well I’ll be up all night but craving something familiar: a meeting over coffee. It’s the little things. 

When he returns he’s carrying a box of a dozen donuts. Glazed, fruit filled, sprinkled-the works. Four for each of us. This British man has severely underestimated the richness, the sweetness, the ungodly caloric density of American donuts. Four of these could kill a small horse. I pick the chocolate one and bite into it. 

As Chris talks about the upcoming annual report, two small boys appear in the giant window behind him. Their clothes look years older than they do. One is holding a bundle of small, red roses, no doubt selling them for some unseen power. With eyes wide the pair begins jumping up and down pointing at our box of multicolored pastries. 

Before long Chris realizes he’s lost our attention and turns to see who the culprits are. He smiles to himself and looks down at the box. “Well we might as well. We’re not going to eat all of these.”

Reena agrees, waving the boys over to us and in three short seconds they’re by our table reaching for the desserts. Reena stops them, saying something in Hindi. The boys ignore her, arms stretched past her. She repeats the last phrase again, stern but friendly. Still jumping they finally shout the Hindi word for ‘please’. Happy with their response she hands them two donuts, one chocolate, the other glazed. As they dash back towards the door one of them turns around and quickly throws a kiss in our direction.

Before we can get back to the matters at hand, the two boys return, this time with a small girl in tow. A long yellow dress reaches up from the floor towards her visibly dirty face. They point her towards the box between us. Chris, who spent 20 years living in Bangalore, should have seen this coming. 

But before he can do anything, the security guard catches sight of the scene unfolding (a lot of establishments here have security guards. On an unrelated note, I don’t know if I’ve seen any police in this country). After three quick strides he grabs the girl by the arm and starts pulling her away, empty-handed. 

Oh but he underestimates her. 

With a sharp tug and a twist the girl breaks free and runs back to us, her arms outstretched wide, her smile wider. Reena quickly sneaks her the bright, sprinkled donut before the guard regains his grip. 

As he shoves the trio out the door he gives each of them a sharp smack on the head, but it hardly registers. They have the sugar-saturated alms they came for. Before slipping off into the night they slap their hands against the window and wave to us one last time. 

Chris chuckles at the chaos. “I’m sure they come to this window every night looking for suckers like us.”

I nod my head in agreement. Reena does too, smiling.

We push away the underlying reality of the scene and allow ourselves to focus on their joy for a few minutes. 

 I don’t think we mind being tonight’s suckers.