The train was late the third day in a row. It meant that there would be a crowd again and I wouldn?t get to stand with my back to the wall. Of course it is just a 30 minute ride, but time does seem to stretch on monotonous routes with unknown faces all around. The bags in the hands feel like weights in the gym- unwanted, but necessary.

?There is always an endless capacity to pontificate on things that have no meaning and questions that have no answers?, I tell myself and make a deliberate attempt to drag myself away from the usual swarm of thoughts and focus on the surroundings. Going up and down the same route dulls the senses in such a way that unless there?s something drastic, one tends not to notice anything, let alone remember it.

My eyes scoured the compartment. The same expressionless faces, the same distracted looks, the same wired apparatus in each hand. I was beginning to wonder why I looked up from the interesting ?Golden-Gate? that I was re-reading for the sheer joy of getting lost into another world that comprised of modern sonnets, when the train came to a grinding halt at Mankhurd station.

A blur of faces passed by, a real-time fast-forward, and like in a kaleidoscope, clothes, bags, voices and umbrellas rearranged themselves into a new pattern. Everyone quickly settled down, most faces looking downward. The right side of the field of vision was new though, with only a large expanse of fluorescent orange and pink visible.

A closer look revealed a lot of transparent plastic packets tied neatly to a long stick. It appeared to be standing on its own, propped next to the door. Pink fluorescent blobs on one side and bright orange on the other, moving in the strong wind. It was cotton candy in the happiest of colours.

The first class compartment in the Mumbai local train has a certain type of traveller. In the women?s section particularly, there is hardly any interaction or camaraderie among fellow travellers, except for the time when someone who shouldn?t be there climbs in. The women, then, suddenly unite to condemn the person- be it a man who has got in accidentally, or a woman/ women who have no idea that they have entered a special compartment even if by mistake.

The hawkers also, rarely ever enter the first class women?s compartment as not many buy anything.

It was evident there was a person who carried this bunch of orange and pink who wasn?t welcome here.

Women scolded someone for entering, and reprimanded ?this type? who ?don?t see where they are going?. There were some exclamations about calling the police, etc. A shrill voice could be held pleading.

As I was to alight at the next station, I inched closer to the person behind the shock of cotton candy. It was a boy. Eleven or twelve years old. He was looking out and gazing into the distance. I couldn?t help but ask him not to lean so far out of the moving train that he would risk hurting himself.

He retreated but did not look my way. Thin hands, a shock of dark brown hair and a firm grip on the stick, he had well-worn clothes and a very dirty neck and hands. We both alighted on the station, and I caught up with him just because I was curious to see his face.

He stood for a while gazing at the train that left the platform, and caught me looking at him. He said he didn?t realise that he was in the first class compartment. I told him to relax and that it was okay. His eyes went to my phone and he asked me if it had a camera, and would I please take a picture of his? I took a couple of them and as I showed them to him. I saw him smile.

?Could you bring me a copy?? he asked.

?Of course I could?, I replied.

This proved to be an ice-breaker. I was heading towards the exit on the west side. He hesitated. I asked him where he was going. ?To a school right across?, he said. I told him I hoped to meet him on this platform someday soon. He nodded.

?Tell me your name Beta?, I asked.

?Sohail?, was the reply and in a moment he was lost in the crowds that suddenly emerged from the next train that arrived on the platform. I had no way of asking him where and when I should meet him next to give him his picture.

There are so many such children who work for a living. This little boy was perhaps supporting his family in a small way. Ironically, he was selling cotton candy in front of a school, to children his age. At an age where he needed to be cared for and sent to school to study, he was learning the tough art of survival in a metro which is ruthless to those who cannot cope.

He was travelling in the same train with uncaring adults who were more worried about their own rights to travel in an exclusive compartment and unconcerned or maybe unaware of the bigger violation of his rights as a child.

Cotton candy will be a different kind of memory for him when he grows up. Not remotely similar to the sweet, fluffy and dreamy treat like it signifies for some of us.