Team Ahimsa Blog Relay, Various Contests

The Quest - #30DBC

PROMPT November 4th

We've all heard of people who mysteriously 'go missing'.
Tonight, write about a person who 'goes missing'.
Someone that you read about in the newspaper or online,
but nobody seems to know them, or remember them.

The headlines were full of it. The TV channels screamed the news. Social media was choked with posts, one of which I shared on my timeline.

The photo showed a kindly woman, middle aged, with curly brown hair. She had big black eyes and her cheeks were so wrinkled, they made you smile. She had gone missing, and everyone was searching for her.

Two children had reported the loss to their teacher. The teacher had alerted the police, who, after searching on foot and by bicycle and van, had put out an alert. Check-posts were set up at all the bus stops, train stations and airports. The traffic police were on alert at the toll booths for road users.

When pressed to do so, the children described her. A sketch was made, of which a photo was circulated. Nobody had seen her lately, though everyone admitted she was vaguely familiar. Like someone they had known years ago and couldn't quite recognize at this age. Maybe they had seen her here, maybe they had seen her there. The policemen and policewomen on the job got personally motivated – like they'd lost an aunt. They went beyond the call of duty to search for her.

It was a smart young interviewer, new to the job, who thought of asking the children if they knew her name. They didn't. They only knew what they called her. "Ma Daya" - Mother Kindness. The children lived on the street and they found that, just during the festival of Diwali, when she should've been more prominent, she had disappeared.

Can you help find Kindness, this festive season, for the street kids?