Piper's curse endures

<div class="section1"><div class="Normal">Three o''Clock, Sunday.<br />She balanced on her crutches, perilously close to the divider on Brigade Road, opposite Urban Edge.<br />Begging.<br />She wasn''t more than 10 years old.<br />Young men and women in figure-hugging clothes jitterbugged to the pub. Some reached into their purses, some shooed her away.<br />Dark, ominous clouds rolled across the firmament.A cold wind blew from the South. She stood there, looking up at the sky ever so often.<br />The rain came down, in huge drops. Cars whizzed by. And she hobbled across to the awning of the Hong Kong Restaurant.<br />11.30 am, Monday, she was back on the road, in the same filthy clothes.<br />What''s your name?<br />``Radha''''.<br />``Where is your family?''''<br />``What family?''''<br />The matador behind honked. One moved.<br />More rain in the afternoon. The waif stood shivering under the tree near All Saints.<br />``Will you be willing to stay in an orphanage. They will look after you well. You can go to school.''''<br />``No,'''' she shouted.<br />Embarrassed, what with so many people looking, one drove away.<br />Late that evening, as one traversed flooded roads, one spotted dozens of children, begging. Some with scars, some crippled, some blind.<br />Ask them about their parents, their guardians and they turned hostile.<br />Late night... shadows, groups of street children sleeping, in nooks and corners.<br />Tuesday morning, bright and sunny, a rainbow disappearing into the white light.<br />Radha standing near the divider.<br />``My name is not Radha. Everybody calls me <span style="" font-style:="" italic="">langdi</span> (cripple)...''''<br />Ours is not a city of the future or the past. Just a twilight zone which most of us escape, forgetting we''ve left the children behind.<br />The curse of the Pied Piper of Hamlyn endures.</div> </div>