Another Child’s Dream…

If you have ever spent even a day in an Indian metropolitan, you have already been introduced to the beggar class of this rapidly growing nation. The kids loitering on the streets, reading your face when you give them a look of sympathy or when you stare away, the women holding their infants and zipping between cars when the traffic light is red and the men with amputated arms, legs and even broken fingers knocking on your comfortable four-wheeler’s window are no surprise to you.

We have become immune to our fellow country-men, their plight, their assumed comatose lifestyle and the faces of their unfortunate kids who never learn the true meaning of affection, care and childhood. They are subject only to the business mindedness of this world and the harsh realities of life. They are toughened by the lack of comfort and they settle in their lives of misery, with a strong sense of acceptance often chased by impossible dreams of glory.

And as you travel on the road to work, life seems to be good and the universe seems to be functioning as it always should. But right then, when everything seems perfect, the traffic light turns red and you see a little girl of about four sitting on the divider with an infant of about one in her lap. The baby stares away, wondering why his sister is weeping and perhaps wondering exactly where mummy and daddy are. And while all this goes on, the three year old stands on his still unstable feet with a hand on his sister’s shoulder attempting to understand the world before him. You know they are new to the clan of street beggars, for they aren’t begging. They are simply sitting there… waiting. Waiting like always, for that’s what life is about. They are shivering in Delhi’s peak winter, the wind blowing hard in their faces as they shy away from it, and the cars ready to zoom by once again. They don’t look at your shrewd face, or your amazing new car. They only look into the distance hoping to see a familiar face. What do you do? Speed away to work because your boss expects you to? Forget about the kids and move on with your cozy life and continue to smile because today seems perfect? Or do you wonder… wonder why that girl with her two little pigtails cries, wonder where her parents are, wonder whether this is one of those many begging rackets that you read of, wonder how they will make it through the day, wonder if they are hungry and wonder how cold they are in their unwashed clothes that consist of nothing but one layering of cotton fabric? Wonder what their life is like…

I talk from experience for about 2 weeks ago, I was the one sitting in my new car with my father. The light turned green and we drove away, only to be haunted by the cheerless faces of children who deserve the kindness and the support of adults. The innocence in the eyes of the girl as she tried to huddle with her younger siblings to keep off the cold, the tears incessantly rolling down her face and the confusion written on the faces of her siblings would not let me drive away. These kids could be in trouble, perhaps left on the street to fend for themselves or made to beg for unforgiving strangers. They sat on the street divider, freezing in the cold waiting and hoping for someone to notice, not knowing what to do… they were lost in a big and scary world, frightened and unaware of what might be hurled their way next. Their faces froze in time, I could not push them away and it only made sense that being a few hundred meters away, we go back and take control of the situation. I knew then that they would go home with me if need be…

Once I stepped out of the car, we flagged down a policeman who was very helpful and crossed the street with me up to the divider. When I kept my hand on the little girl’s back, her tear filled, innocent eyes looked at me searching for an answer, perhaps afraid that I would ask her to move from this spot she had made for herself. The infant in her arms stretched an arm towards me and touched the fur of my coat and the 3 year old looked at me with a clear streak of hope in his eyes. It’s an out of the world feeling when you know deep down that a child has placed his or her entire faith in you for whatever reason it may be. A few questions were enough to realize that this was their first time on the street. They were alone because their parents had left them there that morning, and although I breathed a sigh of relief knowing that this was not another racket, my heart sank even deeper. Who could these kids trust and believe in when their own parents had left them starving and cold on the streets of the biggest city in India? Who were these kids going to depend on and how were they going to make it through the day? Watching speeding cars go by does not fill an empty stomach and nor does it wipe the tears of a lost and lonely girl. There was not much anyone could do till they knew if the parents would come back for them in the evening, so we pleaded the policeman to keep an eye out and we decided to take them home if they were still there in the evening when we returned. In the meantime, I handed them some money in case of any mishap and also handed my lunch to the little boy. By this time, at least ten street kids had surrounded us, begging for money and food and following me to the car. Their faces were hardened from their days on the street. They knew how to survive on the street unlike the three new faces.

I stepped in the car and we drove away slowly, but while we did that we saw the cop walking the three kids off the street so they don’t get hurt by a distracted driver. Nothing mattered now, I would be late for work, I didn’t have lunch to eat although mom had woken up early to prepare my favorite food, and I would probably never forget that the world isn’t perfect, but these are all matters of little essence for that little girl was smiling with a small treasure stuck in her pocket, there was a hop in her walk almost as if her youngest sibling felt much lighter and the little boy held on tightly to the lunchbox, his knuckles white with the effort but his face beaming as he kept his eyes on the food. The twinkle of their eyes had returned, if only for a short while, and the world seemed an inch closer to perfection… When I saw them the next day, I knew their parents took them home in the evenings when they had earned for the family. Their tiny hands would soon be stretched in front of strangers who will drive away without even noticing them and their faces will harden as they find their new life on the streets. Soon, they will be accustomed to unkind strangers shooing them away or driving by, giving little importance to their precious lives. The tomorrow of India will be ignored and treated with unabashed cruelty today. Today will foreshadow the tomorrow, and they will learn to ignore tears and pleas of the helpless. They will never say “Mera Bharat Mahan”.

And when they grow up, their good deeds will be credited to them and perhaps the few individuals they have interacted with, but their vices will all be on us – the people of India. If they take up arms one day or partake in violence and robbery, we must also be seen as accomplices for we have taught them that nothing is as important as us. The tears of a hungry child, the shivers of a cold child and the misery of a baby in an indiscernible world are not to be worried about. What one must worry about is how to stuff our pockets with a stack of crisp notes, whether the other person dies of starvation or of a bullet… What one must worry about is how to steal a commission instead of delivering to the unfortunate what is rightfully theirs… This is our karma, our country’s great value system that we pride and what we hear every morning at traffic lights is not the horns of cars or the noise of engines, but the shattering of yet another child’s dream…