Bucharest felt lonely to a sheltered, only child. I spent most days overlooking the dusty neighbourhood from our apartment, wondering whether the Roma tales were true.
“It’s dangerous,” my grandmother warned. “If the gypsies catch you, they will take you far away and you’ll never see us again.”
Giving up the chance to play with the neighbouring children was considered a small price to pay, in exchange for my safety; instead, she brought me to a local park where I sought friends earnestly. I spent many days playing with others for both our first and last time.
Further attempts to flee solitude found me chasing after stray dogs, snails and butterflies. Animals fascinated me and I beheld them with reverent obsession. Discovering merchants selling baby chicks, ducks and rabbits in the marketplace, filled my heart with delight.
The bazaar atmosphere felt rich and prosperous, inviting for most to peruse its bounty, yet wary of the Roma. They walked among us bearing the weight of the crowd’s mistrustful energy.
People called them dirty, thieves and liars, but their appearance stemmed from poverty and I began to realize, later, the cruel presence of caste-like division.
What made a man, that, which he was, and how was it measured?
I continued pressing into my grandmother’s side each time Roma walked by, for at my fragile, single-digit age, I couldn’t tell the nationalist and nomad, in their differences, were both the same.
Their children begged for food, hungry for the succulent fruits of the marketplace, scraps from the butcher, treats from the fine Romanian bakery or the popular corn-on-the-cob sold by vendors sitting on our street corners.
They found sympathy from few and were rashly dismissed by many. More often, the children were successful at funerals, where those pressed by grief, bitter loss and life’s reflections, remember to give with longing-tears of absolution, in the name of God, while striving for his infinite attention.
The Point of Meaning 