"Children are the bright makers of the coming tomorrow"
The noble thought is one,which can not be negated.If you see this a the philosophical or maybe a more metaphorical way of life.
Though what i find really ironical about this statement is the dubious nature of this society,it reveals only those facts to the public ears which don't mark their reputations or may not bring about pointing of disdain fingers on to their fury coats.
When we talk about children, do we really talk about the entire young, immature, lively, cheerful kids or do we talk of a certain few born in air-conditioned maternity wards rather than what one may call unhygienic hutments; do we refer to children who grow up in cradle laden with stuff toys to their luxuries or the ones who cry and yell their days off on a piece of rug to which they don't have anyone around to hear and respond.
Here I very blatantly mention a divide that particularly exits, and mind you this is just a very broad divide that we talk of right now. Trust me, there is a lot more to it what meets the open eyes.
Coming down to what my real point, it was really a shock to me to know that every 6th urban child dwells in a slum, deprived of all his rights, deprived of education and denied health services and a lot more to be added into the list.
My question, here, is doesn't a child dwelling in slums has a right to healthy and sound living, a right to learn basics like reading and writing.
We've thousand writers who would write on issues like focusing on education and development of children towards a brighter nation but what doesn't impress me is their meagre logics behind the cause. I'd like to mention that opening up private schools won't get slum kids to classrooms, free health check-ups at public places won't garner to their interests.
I do not deny that the slum children I'm talking about seats themselves in what the society calls a 'minority number' but it is same as politics where you need support of majority and minority to have the power of things.
The slum children are left to destiny's mercy to take them along. Undoubtedly I say, it won't come to me as a surprise if I can grab hold on to a story of a slum kid growing into a billionaire today but that is a rarity.
Children are forced to sell flowers, memorabilia, and other pretty things at tourist spots, stations, traffic signals and almost everywhere, some of them who don't happen to be that road smart are compelled to a level where their last option is left either beg or steal.
It would come as a shock to you if next time you observe a slum kid sitting down with a cigarette and gambling and think about the fact that may be a little care from the society, a little attention to their cause from the society could have landed the guy up in a proper classroom with books in hands or rather than packs of card and cigarette. What a bigger setback is that it is then you realize that it is people like you and me make up this society.
If you wanted your son to get into IIT and later into MIT, so did the guy's parents, just that they knew that they don't have the means to or what can be worse is that the guy may not even be knowing who and where his parents might be.
I quote an incident here from one of my little experiences with these kids. I was waiting in a taxi for the bottleneck jam to open up at Worli, Mumbai, where this girl walks up to the cab with a bunch of roses and says, " Bhaiya red roses hai, le lo na, bas 10 Rs ke hai". What would I do with these roses I thought and then I refused. She persisted and I kept denying every time. The girl goes back disappointed to my surprise, she comes back to me in 2 minutes, gives me a rose and says, "Bhaiya Happy Friendship Day". I couldn't really understand what she was up to at that point of time , but then I smiled and accepted the offer by the sweet little kid. She waits for 2 minutes and then again says, "Bhaiya ab toh hum dost ban gaye hai, ab le hi lo." I could do anything but smiled and gave her Rs. 20 with a big grin on my face.
This was a small kid with no basic education convincing people for buying stuffs and trust me she was great at it. But then I thought, what a pity, the society can come up with a dime towards their cause.
The big question now traces back to the very first statement I made, "Children, the makers of tomorrow.". The question is who we refer here to when we talk about children.
I don't have any second thought in my mind that the slum kids can do even better towards this cause if they are brought at par with the other side of the divide.
Policies and help offered to these slum kids don't really serve a real time solution towards the cause as it again benefits the same division who have the rich dads to vouch for them at any point of their needs.
It is high time that we realize and wake up to the cause and do something about it because if not we then who? After all it is us who make the society, don't we?
Abhayankar Singh talks about the fading innocence of slum kids because of the fine line created by the society.
He is pursuing his B.Tech from National Institute of Foundry and Forge Technology (NIFFT).
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