A Child Story...

A story representing a few of those millions of unfortunate ones that don't make it to the spotlights.

I will tell you a story.

A story about a child.
A story of survival, a story of helplessness.
A story of surrender.

The roots of this story lie in a downtrodden area of a prosperous metropolis of a rather developing nation; where the brand of perfume or waist length are not the primary concerns. The subject of our story was born to a very poor household, amongst the cries of his dozen hungry siblings being beaten by a drunk father. Though his little eyes were still closed, he could already feel the pain and suffering in his weakened mother's voice. He could feel her distress at not being able to feed him. He could feel his own hunger and weakness.
And then he could feel nothing.
He died.

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Another child in another city survived. Yes, he survived his death, but not his ill fortune. The same drunk father, the same weakened, but working, mother and half a dozen siblings to fight him for food. All life meant for him was scrouging food from those municipal wastes and watching those uniformed children of nice families with their bags and water bottles every morning. One day, he saw his father having a long animated chat with a person whom he had never seen before, after which his father came over to him and gave a pat on his shoulder. He had never seen him so happy, neither could he understand the reason for her mother crying the whole night. The next morning, the same man took him to a middle class family in the other end of the town, where his daily chores included washing dishes, clothes, sweeping and carrying out small errands for his masters. He watched daily as his mistress would read out to her children from their colourful books, which had many beautiful drawings of a puppet with a long nose and a beautiful lady with white wings. The paper was soft. He got beaten badly for touching the kids' bags and was accused of theft. They shut him in a dark room for two days without food. He cried alone in the dark. He cried for his mother.
But soon those two days passed and so did many years. He always missed his mother. Once he even ran away to search for her, but not knowing where to go and an empty stomach forced him to return back. And thus his days passed by, the hands who should have felt pen and paper washed dishes, the cheeks who were once kissed by his mother now bore the signs of his masters' anger.
A life entitled to love was now ordained to affliction.

____________________________________________________________________

Different households have different tragedies.
This one had everything running perfect and nice.
A caring father's daily wage as an industrial laborer sufficed the needs of the family.
A hardworking man, he never let his children feel the void created by his wife's demise. But things have a tendency to go wrong just as you think they can't. An accident at the factory saw him losing his hands to a piece of machinery. Since he could work no more, the bread winning task of the family fell on the shoulders of his eldest son. He was offered his father's job according to the "company law"; but the place which took the hands of a full grown man was no playground for his 8-year son. Lack of money and inflexible compensation rules forced the father to send him to the nearby fireworks factory, a small establishment which used only children as workers to minimize wage and hassles.
He hated life there. Work hours extended from 7 in the morning to 2 in the night, with an occasional breath taker in between and meals. He hated the chemicals that he had to deal with. They made his skin dry and parched with a burning sensation. The air which was filled with sulfur made him choke at times. Most of his fellow workers had suffered the work's toll. Burnt skin and fingers were a common sight. He came to know of a boy who had his face badly scarred and his fingers mutilated in an accident, but still that boy worked there, making matchsticks and occasionally rolling crackers . Apparently the owner got a letter signed from his father that he suffered injuries while playing at home.
Everyday, the owner would yell at them and beat them. He would say that the nation ran due to them. They were the working force of the nation, their motherland. He would talk about affection and duty towards their motherland.

Affection?
Surely the word was alien to him now.

____________________________________________________________________

These were three instances of the conditions some of the less fortunate children of our nation dwell in.
Someone is dead before having a chance to see this beautiful world, because his father was a drunkard and his mother was too weak to feed him. All the mention he gets in the world is in the infant death ratio charts.

Someone works as a domestic laborer, carrying out the whims of his "civilized" masters. No matter how nicely he serves them, obeys their orders; at puberty, he is kicked from the house to restrict the effect of his "ill company" on their growing children. With nowhere to go and nothing to eat, he has no chance but to steal. He is caught. They call him a thief. They spit at him.

Someone works days and nights at a meager salary at a constant risk of being blown to bits any second. He works barehanded with chemicals like potassium cyanide and magnesium stearate, which in some parts of the world, are handled by people wearing titanium suits, to create matches and fireworks; which are used for celebrations.
A moment of joy for someone is a lifelong ordeal for another.

These are but a few insights into what the present is, and what the future holds. A corpse, a thief , a mutilated body incapable of doing its daily chores????
But alas. All we do is write the story, read it, and move along. Hoping for their Saviour to come soon. This is our contribution to whatever fate they suffer.

The story ends here.
But neither do their pain and suffering, nor our indifference.
Before ending, I have a question for all of us. Given the three choices as in the story, which one would we like to take?

Well, the answer is obvious, and so is our apathy.

Reviews

[Constance]

Your grasp of the English language is phenomenal. I take it you've known English from an early age?
And what you have written is all, sadly, very true.
India is not alone in this plight, Ujjwal. Here in America, I've spent time talking to the homeless, to the impoverished- there is an untouchable class here, as well. We just don't call them that. I should know. I've been amongst their number. The difference here is that one has at least some chance of rising out of it all- with a little help from a stranger, and a bit of determination.
Yet, there are many types of poverty. Emotional poverty- apathy, is perhaps the worst.
I remember a proverb from India I read once. It said "If you live in the graveyard, you cannot cry for everyone." If you are human, truly human, you certainly can- you can cry for change.
I'm rambling, obviously, because you made me think. This is powerfully written. Thank you so much for posting it here. I hope many come and read.

[Bhavya Kaushik]

This is surely sad! But the choice of subject is really awesome..
Great command on the language and brilliant usage of words at few places..
Amazing work! and very powerful indeed.

[Berserker[Diktator Von ..]

Wow..such a powerful piece..glad that you adress these issues..they happen all around the world..even in america..though not to that extent..great job..keep writing...=)