Flower Boats

“Those kids would be better off dead at the bottom of the Ganges.”

When I think of the kids who sold flowers along the ghats behind my hotel my mind goes first to this phrase. It bothers me that this memory surpasses all the other ones I have with them. 

I can recall with clarity that time I brought them toothbrushes that they fought over like hyenas on a carcass. And that time they stole a European woman’s purse so the police came and beat them with sticks as their punishment. Among all of these memories, I hate that this statement is the one I choose to go to. 

I knew casteism was alive and well in India so it didn’t catch me with surprise in that way. What did surprise me was my lack of response.

During a walk along the ghats with the hotel manager, we came across the group of flower peddling street children hard at work attempting to shake down a Westerner for rupees. I had grown to find their scam comical but the hotel manager found it disgusting.

He sneered at the half dozen children and formed this memory for me.

His wish of death for them was not a miscommunication through broken English but a carefully created sentence that I am sure he uttered many times before. 

I looked at him but did not offer his comment a response. I thought I did this as an act of defiance toward his ignorance but looking back today I wonder if I was at a loss for words because part of me agreed with him.

It wasn’t that I thought these children were lesser beings who weren’t deserving of life but as fucked up as this sounds, death seemed like the only path out of hardship for them.

At first, I thought it was a child’s game of trickery I watched them play with tourists from the safety of my hotel balcony, but I came to learn that it was grasps toward survival I was watching. 

They would sell little boats of flowers to Westerners for inflated prices but if their deal was declined they would chase their target down the ghats until they relented. Once the deal was made they would help the new owner of the small flower boat light a small flame at its center and send the flowers floating down the river as a holy offering. 

Once their customer was safely out of view I would watch them run down the river, fish the flower boat out of the water and sell it again to the next tourist. 

I admired their clever spirits but refused to fall prey to the flower scam until my work took me into the slum many of the children called home. After that, I bought flower boats every day, and eventually, I told them just to keep the flower boats and gave them money anyway.

I got to know the group of kids and this is when I took them the toothbrushes and candy (backward reasoning I know.)

I did this partly because I enjoyed them and partly because of the guilt I felt knowing they would never live an easy life. I could not buy enough flower boats to save them or give them enough rupees from the bottom of my purse. Even the cash from the centerfolds of my wallet wasn’t enough. 

Yes, maybe the hotel manager was hateful but right. Life would be easier for these children if they found themselves at the bottom of the Ganges but death is not a kind alternative to poverty. 

Also, I can’t help but acknowledge the irony that 6 months later the owner of the hotel would be cremated along the very banks the children sold the flowers on.