in my peripheral vision, I detected passengers glancing over at my predicament. Indians are typically curious to see how a foreigner confronts the face of poverty, the face of the polluted caste. Their prying eyes angered me and I beat back the urge to spew my dirtiest Hindi, however, more than anything, I fought the impulse to scoop up the child and carry her far away from here. But I knew this was a ridiculous notion. There was nothing, utterly nothing, I could do to change this girl’s situation. If I gave her one dollar or a hundred, it would only delay the inevitable. The reality was she had a high chance of being sold into prostitution, of becoming a drug addict, of dying young. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t say, "Namaste." After what felt like an endless minute, it dawned on me that all I could be held responsible for, and all I could possibly do, was one tiny act of kindness for this one tiny
person. The moment I reached into my wallet, she stopped and thrust out her hand. She stuffed twenty rupees into her pocket and turned on her heel without a nod, grin, or wink. I looked toward the other passengers; they quickly looked at their newspapers or out the windows. Another white sucker, they were probably thinking. I waited for someone to shuffle over and give me "the talk," but thankfully no one came. A few minutes later, the girl hopped off at a station. Thirty minutes later, I hopped off at mine. In rain-flooded streets, an auto-rickshaw ploughed through floating trash and carried me to the airport. I boarded my flight, headed toward home, where, in a state of exhaustion and relief, I peered through the portal window as the plane rose above the gray clouds and Vishnu’s dream vanished below.