The usually boring and quite Sunday began was disturbed by the wails of 'Mamma, Mamma' from somewhere in the building. I am a nice neighbour, I never crib about kids crying or making noise. So, I chose to ignore it thinking it must be some kiddy tantrum. After 15 minutes, I continued to hear the cries so I thought I would just check and see. Opened the door and I saw a little girl, about 2 years old, wailing her heart out. She was all alone. I went near her, but the moment she saw me coming, she moved further and kept on crying. Now, I definitely know that she does not live on the same floor as I do. Neither have I seen her play with the building kids. So, I rang the bell of the neighbor who has a 3 year old in the hope that they may recogonize her. No one answered.
This little one, meanwhile, sneaked into the lift and started crying again. I ran to the lift and stood in between the lift doors to block it. Meanwhile, S also came out. Together, we both tried to pacify her and ask her where her Mama is. Any attempt to go near her resulted in more crying. She was also hitting her own face, may be because she was really scared. We moved into the lift and decided to go to the ground floor to call the security. They came in, but they had never seen this girl before. Glances of panic exchanged between S and me. Then, we called the occupants of a ground floor flat to help us identify the girl. They too had no clue. The lady of the house, who is a mom decided to help me out to get the kid out of the lift. She offered her a chocolate, asked her son to get into the lift to get her out, tried singing. The kid wont budge. Finally she barged in and picked up the kid, ignoring all the kicks and cries.
No one knew who this kid was and we all were panicking by the moment. I thought for a moment about her parents, wondering if they would be running around searching for her. A good 20 minutes passed and many residents gathered. Finally, someone decided to check in the play area and ask the kids there. When we reached, a four year old came running and said, 'yeh hamari hai'. This little girl was a guest at his house and had come down to play with him. He saw his regular group of friends and forgot all about her. We went to their house to drop the girl and saw that the parents were not aware, they all were eating happily and enjoying. When we told them what had happened, the started scolding this 4 year old saying you were not careful. That is when many of us lost it, we said he is too young to take care of another kid. What remains a mystery is how she managed to reach the 2nd floor from the ground floor.
Is it okay for parents to leave little kids unsupervised during play hours? So many people move in and out of the apartment complex apart from the residents. There is a swimming pool in the apartment complex which remains deserted because of the chilly Bangalore weather. The fact that she is a guest and not a regular resident also makes it tough for the girl to trace back her way to the house. Needless to say, we all were shuddering at the possibility of what could have happened. Leaving a 2 year old to be supervised by a 4 year old is never a good idea. Wonder what the parents were thinking. I was too tempted to give them a piece of a my mind, but resisted because of their worried expressions.
Meanwhile, the little girl was too happy to be with her mama and comfortably slept on her shoulders.
