Ten-year-old Durga's sharp eyes shone from the sunlight that ricocheted off the silver coin as she steadfastly stared at it, not noticing the heavy arm that fell on her shoulders. The five rupee coin looked like a little moon, seemingly attainable, but never within reach. Memories of her and her little brother's hands flailing towards the moon while they lay on their backs in the open fields flashed in front of her eyes. The tall moonlit stalks like spears had pierced the sky which shielded the big, bad moon. But down there, they would catch its illusion in their tiny fists and giggle triumphantly, till the emptiness of their fists seeped in their bodies and they stilled.

"Do you want this?" At the old man's husky voice, she nodded in a daze. Two arms engulfed her body and set her on an excited knee. "You will have to come with me then." The rickshaw driver threw back an apathetic look as the old man squeezed her, gripping the coin like a chip and swaying it. "Don't you want this?"

There was a sudden roar of vehicles that expelled smoke at the blink of the yellow traffic light and she snapped out of her trance, her agile body slipping from his hold in an instant.

"You wait here," she commanded. "I have left my little brother. I'll bring him and then we can go."

Blink! The vehicles lurched to life, but her bare feet skipped them nimbly and crossed the street. Her little brother Veer was playing with the big-eyed children who dwelled on the footpath. Unlike them, Durga and Veer lived in a flimsy tent with their parents and others who toiled away at the construction site. Their tent would tempestuously flutter with the wind like a bird desperate to fly higher and higher till it reached the moon.

She seized Veer's hand despite his protests. "Leave your childish games! We need to go!" She whirled towards the street, but the old man wasn't waiting. She was late. Huffing, she threw down his hand and spat out, "I was going to get five rupees! It's all gone because of you!"

Veer's face began crumpling like paper and before it tore into a wild wail, she added hastily, "Never mind. We have enough money for cotton candy today. Do you want one?"

Without a word, he followed her towards the ringing of the golden bell that the lanky man with the cotton candy stand shook, drawing every child's eyes to the pink, sugary clouds. On the way, Durga knocked the pellucid window of the BMW at the traffic signal for a coin, cupping her eyes as if holding binoculars and peering inside. A man in a crisp suit briefly saw her, then turned his head to the other window, talking on his phone. His smartly dressed son sat next to him, the same age as Durga, jabbing at the buttons of the shiny IPad. Neither of them were a part of this world.

Upon seeing her own grimy reflection on the window next to the boy, she impulsively spat at the car, grasping Veer's hand and scurrying away at the first curses of the driver.

"Why did you do that?" Veer cried out, the cotton candy trembling in his hands.

"Just eat!" she hissed, her eyes flickering from the diminishing Mercedes to his magnifying fear at her scolding. They softened when his face sunk in the pink cloud, the gossamer sugar sticking to the snot that trickled from his nose. Laughing, she wiped his nose with the hem of her tattered frock.

"Can I give some?" He pointed at the big-eyed children on the footpath who began crowding hungrily around Veer like a pack of wolves. Before Durga could ward them off, Veer began tearing pieces of the cotton candy and proffered to them, his face serene. The children snatched, devoured and sucked their fingers, the sugar melting on their content lips.

That was how they gobbled their dinner too in the tent, licking the thin dal off the plate and letting that taste linger to soothe their starving stomachs. The blackened body of their mother dropped to sleep halfway through the dinner, the dal splattering on the plastic sheet. It would dry into rocks the next morning, but she was fast asleep to notice. Durga and Veer climbed on the prostrate form of their father, dancing on his stiff back as he lay lifeless. Outside, the wind howled mercilessly, sending a chilling thrill down Durga's body. Would the wind blow them away again?

A streak of sunlight filtered in through the hole of the tent like a torchlight, spilling on her eyes and urging her to wake up. There was no sign of her parents except for the hardened dal that Veer scraped and licked from the floor. Flies bred and followed them everywhere. Some tents outside had uprooted and naked children ran among the ruins with the plastic tied like a cape around their necks. The only adult left was a heavily pregnant woman waddling in her blouse and petticoat with a mug full of brackish water, throwing it at a drowsy boy squatting behind the tree.

Like every day, Durga and Veer took to the dusty roads of Mumbai, but Veer couldn't find his playmates on the footpath. So he trailed after Durga as she went knocking on the windows of the cars, the puffs of smoke rising around them. A window of an old Maruti was rolled down and grabbing that opportunity, Durga latched herself to the car like a reptile, asking for a coin through the silence.

"Don't touch the car! Shoo! Keep away!" the young man at the driver's seat yelled at noticing her and she tightened her grip, smirking. The two women at the backseat discreetly shifted from the window. "Move, you filthy rat!"

"Why? What will you do?" she challenged, ignoring the pleading tugs of Veer. "Your car isn't even good for you to act like a King! Have you seen a BMW?"

"Motherf*cker," the man swore, stepping out and although Durga sprinted, she was held back by her panic-stricken brother. A strong hand grabbed her thin arm and smacks rained on her head, one after the other. She couldn't see because of her frizzy hair, but her hot, throbbing ears could catch the shrieks of the women and the cries of her brother. Shame ran deep inside her that her body ached from it and not at all from the beating.

At the distant whistle of the traffic policeman, her body was pushed on the rough ground. In an instant, she rose again and fiercely chased the Maruti till the soles of her feet burned, blood oozed out of her chafed knees and tears stung at her eyes. "Motherf*cker!" she screamed through her shallow breaths, the Maruti disappearing at the end of the road.

"Let's go home, please," Veer's begging voice augmented her shame and she shoved him away. They walked back in a deafening silence like defeated soldiers towards their prisons. On the way, a well-dressed child with white shoes ran up to them and offered a one rupee coin.

Durga looked up to see the patronising smile of his mother at a distance, nodding proudly at her son. Shame curdled into pure, unadulterated wrath as Durga snatched the coin and threw it with such a force that the clink echoed in the street. The mother gasped, running to the child and gathering him in her arms. She whispered something incoherent to him in English, her wide eyes sweeping over Durga in disapproval.

"ABCD-ABCDFGH even I know! Why did you give me that coin? Did I ask you to give me?" Durga demanded a scratchy, raw, honest voice that spurned any answer from the speechless mother and made her vanish with her child.

That evening, Durga emerged from the tent with a heavy head and saw Veer holding a newspaper like it was a steering wheel. Mildly amused, she approached him. Before she could tease him, he said, "Come in through the door!" Durga mimed opening a door to humour him and sidled next to him. "Now, close the door!"

"Where are we going?"

"First, close the door!"

"Arey baba, done. Now tell me, where are we going?"

"To our village where there's daadu, bade papa, badi mummy, montu, chinku . . ."

"We're in Bumbai! Why do you want to go back?"

"Vroom, vroom," he said instead, swivelling the newspaper.

She lightly slapped the back of his head. "Only old cars make a sound like that. New cars have no sound and they're fast! No one can hear any sound and before you know, zooooooooop, we have reached daadu's house."

That was how the BMW with the drunken driver had silently killed the children on the footpath the previous night, the headline on the newspaper read-

Should the homeless be allowed to sleep on the footpath?

On Wednesday night, a horrifying incident occurred where a BMW mowed down two children, injuring one . . .