The Mumbai local train is a collage of a million different pieces! Men, women, executives, teachers, bankers, stock brokers, managers, students, hawkers, and god knows how many more come together to make this splendid and ever expanding form!
Me - one such piece - was absorbed in observing (talk abt alliteration!!) another - an 8-9 year old boy carrying a polythene bag. About four feet high, dressed in a brown checkered uniform of a Mankhurd school, rubber slippers in his feet, leaning against the opposite partition. The bag he held had just been deposited by his hands with the plastic hangers he had removed about a minute ago to sell. The bag was a decoy lest he got caught. I wondered what time he must have left school to start his task. At 9:10 p.m. he wasn't making any effort to sell his wares, guess his day had ended. He peeked in the General compartment and took his position near the door. I looked at him for quite a while, there was a small scratch on his nose. He looked in the opposite direction of the moving train, maybe figuring out his next class, next sale tactic, his next customer, or maybe soemthing fun with his friends....
I wondered what it would be to be like him. To be eight, go to school, sell things in the train, complete home-work, help around the house, manage money. I don't want to mention the other things I dread. I dint want to imagine where he lived. Child labour in its most vivid form was right there in front of me...and I could not do a thing. I merely looked at him as he alighted at the next station and saw him disappear.
hmmm.. dont knw what to say...
ReplyDeleteYes, one does feel helpless at such times and like u said, even thinking about what all he must've to go through in a day is unthinkable. All that I used to do when I saw these young boys and girls in the train is offer them the toffee or chocolate I always carry in my purse or buy them something to eat. The very fact that they r not begging used to make me want to give them something.
ReplyDeleteBuying things from them is like promoting child labor but not buying it is like getting them beaten by their masters, more abuse and hunger. I dont have the solution for it...and till someone finds it and implements it I would continue buying things or handing out small treats...thats my way of handling my guilt of being helpless.
Yes Priti i can get what ur saying...if it makes a difference to their life..its worth it..even if for a millisecond..
ReplyDeleteAnd there doesn't have to someone to find it..it could be U..or me.. nai?
Recently i had a very different experience... near the gate of our university a small begger girl came to me as i was about to get of the auto. she begged for some money. This i think has become a part of their instinct by now. her hands were as small as a 3ys old child. following my instincts, i looked at her angrily, she backed off. for the forst time i saw fear in a begger's eyes. generally they show a 'to hell with you' attitude. i remembered the half eaten packet of biscuits in my bag. i fetched it and gave it to her. the memory of her ear to ear grin showing her shiney teeth (yes, they were surprisingly white and clean), the happiness in her twinkling eyes, the eagerness to eat the food, the tight cluch of her fingers on the packet.... the memory is still clear in my mind.
ReplyDeleteyeah..they leave u dumbfounded..sometimes with their arrogance, sometimes with their innocence..
ReplyDelete