The chic beggar has dark streaks in her hair. The exact shade is hard to ascertain but I would go with a mix between mocha and mud red. The hair is held back with a fraying red ribbon; a more laid-back version of the kind that is wrapped around cheery gifts. Her face is expressionless, but her eyes leak condescension – it runs down her face is a gummy mess.

Her skirt has little bells at the hem, but they don’t make any sounds. Her shirt is tied in a loose knot at her midriff, it’s all very casual. Silver bangles snake around her dry arms. When she raises her hand to beg, the bangles all fall to her elbow in a cowering heap. She says something under her breath but I don’t hear it. Finally, she points to her feet. Her left foot is covered in a yellowing bandage.

I don’t see the wound though and either way I am sure it’s fake. What I do see is the tattoo above the bandage. It’s a fish jumping towards her knee. It’s jumping towards another fish which is half hidden under the edge of her skirt. I look back at her and she smirks.

I remove a five rupee coin to hand to her but she walks away, brushing me off like I am a pesky kid. I sit back, still holding the damp coin, unsure what I feel about the whole thing.

They sit against the spit streaked wall; scrawny and bug eyed. When people pass, they raise their hands, asking for money. They shake their steel containers, up and down, making a racket with loose change.

The shoe-shine boy sits cross legged next to them. He plays a little tune with his instruments. The dull thud of the wooden brush hitting the rusted can of polish plays out a popular film song. The men stop by and raise one leg on to his pedestal. His cloth runs across their pseudo expensive shoes, back and forth. In the end, they watch their grim faces in their gleaming shoes and hand him five rupees. He touches the money to his forehead and drops it a nook in the pedestal.

The barber tops the pecking order. He sits on a chair waiting for an unshaven man. He taps his feet against the warm ground. He observes his fingers, trimming the nails idly with the scissor in his hands. The old man who comes for a shave also gets an enthusiastic neck massage. The barber pummels and pats the man’s neck with a clapping noise. The old man falls asleep somewhere along the way.

At night, they wrap up their things and thoughts in boxes and containers. The sounds of their trade seep through their things, running along the cracks of the sidewalk; they lie still only to pick up their song-and-dance the next day.

Bombay Acting Company.

The beggar children flocked at our car window. They pressed their foreheads on the glass; greasy heart shaped marks dotting our view. We ignored them the best we could, pretending to adjust the knobs of the music system. They kept knocking away. Tap tap tap, like horse hooves, just not as poetic.

Finally, we rolled down one window and gave the youngest one a chocolate. He shook his head. He pointed to my handbag and said, “Paisa” I began to roll the window up again but he put his hand in the way, daring me to slam it shut at the cost of hurting him. “Remove your hand!” I said in Hindi, my voice rising with irritation. He shook his head and gave a pitiable look.

His friends patted his head. A tearful sister pointed to a bandaged section of his head. The white gauze was leaking yellow gunk. I was pretty sure that it was fake but I didn’t know how to convey that. I also wondered, at some level, that if he had actually been hit by some drunk man on the streets.

The signal turned green and we began to drive. The kid with the yellow head was left behind, along with the others, looking peeved off, but nothing more. A few lanes down, another set of kids papered the outsides of the car with their hands and faces. They pulled out a baby from somewhere, showing us a tattered, bloody looking plaster covering one arm.

The baby, far too young to be trained to act, was babbling away and laughing.