The Boy Who Fancied Himself a Tiger

by Edd

Hasit chose his spot carefully, close enough to Mumbai’s train station that he could hope for alms from foreigners, far enough so bigger boys wouldn’t beat him for encroaching on their spots. He sat, arm held as if withered, and told stories for money. Most times the tale would be silent, eye contact and an artfully woebegone expression. Sometimes a few words sufficed, cleverly chosen to resonate with the listener. Very occasionally, once a week perhaps, he would relate an extended yarn; a fable of need that would wrench hearts and wallets wide open.

None of the stories Hasit told to others were as potent as those he told himself, and none of these half so eloquent as when he dreamed himself a tiger. No boy tiger he, but a mighty predator, king of a skyscraper jungle where every human cowered before him. He stalked, he pounced, he devoured.

Inevitably, the One Tiger learned of the interloper, and left her tree to confront him. Hasit the tiger forgot all his hard-learned eloquence, meeting the One Tiger claw for claw and fang for fang. They fought across the land, leaping from building to building, from tree to tree, into the jungle of myth, awash with greens beyond green.

Hasit was young and strong in his dreaming, but the One Tiger was ancient and wily. She circled, she taunted, she dodged as if her battle was one she dared not lose. Finally she darted in and sank her teeth into the boy tiger’s forepaw.

The shock of the wound woke Hasit. He lay in the dark, knowing his arm to be crippled beyond repair. It wasn’t the pain, the shredded nightclothes, it wasn’t even that it hung at an unnatural angle.  The damage went to his core, to his image of himself, as if his arm had always been crippled.

Now, Hasit sits before the train station, in a position of honor. He has his pick of passengers to importune. No one minds giving way. They live to hear Hasit’s stories. Travelers, too, are generous, once he catches their eye. With some it only takes a glance, for some a few words will do, but more and more often he produces a longer story.  A tale well told, he thinks with pride, is worth more than the money it will produce.

But in his dreams he is humble.