Few days ago, I was coming home via auto-rickshaw, near Vetalbaba chowk ( A crossing in Pune, near International Convention Center), a 4 year old girl was crying, not a simple cry or a beggar cry, but a desperate one. I looked around and seating on the road divider, was her mother, with another baby in her lap. The entire family was visibly hungry and the mother was pushing the daughter to go beg for something. The mother was visibly anemic and the baby in lap was without any clothes. The 4 year girl has barely any clothes on her and her cry was heart piercing. She was hungry and angry.
I have seen beggars before, the professional ones; but this literally made me cry, tears came to my eyes, before I could do anything, give some money or something the Auto-rickshaw moved on, and the picture stayed with me, till today.
I was angry, frustrated and most of unhappy. I was angry on myself, not for witnessing the event, but getting the jolt of reality, getting an understanding of disparity in lives. My daughter demands things those would be unheard of by that girl on the traffic signal.
I am frustrated because I can not do anything for that girl or for the millions who are in similar position. The helplessness is really driving me nuts, till today, even after 2 weeks. I do not have a satisfying answer.
I am unhappy, yes, I am! I do not know how I am going to continue dealing with this disparity, the problems and most of all, I do not know what can a small person like me do in this case or similar cases.
I hope god gives me strength to deal with similar situations coming in .....or... I will be crying visibly or when I am alone....
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Opinions on life, daily events, and my life experiences. I used to have a little serious tone but now I am having a blast :-)
5 comments:
I am hoping this is something we all go through (well, I hope ... because if a person doesn't have any emotions when seeing a situation like this then I believe the person isn't a human and needs to spend a lot of time looking inward to determine what kind of person he/she has become), I have already faced multiple incidents in my life which have brought a tear to my eye, as I have a 4 year old daughter and cannot imagine to see my daughter or my family in a situation like this.
I am a Canadian born PIO (Person of Indian Origin) who is moving to India for a two/three assignment from my and I am hoping that my family gets a decent amount of exposure to these situations.
My daughter is no different than yours and was born in Canada. She asks for things and takes a lot for granted (can't blame her, since she is only 4 years old - what do you expect from children that young?), but my acceptance of this assignment has been partly driven from the fact that viewing situations like this grows individuals and makes them take less for granted. As, I have lived in Africa and India for more than 11 years of my life and I certainly must say that the experience has helped me to put things in perspective (although, I think I can do more to help these situations as an individual - I am hoping I take more action to help over the next 5 years)
Yes, I do agree with your emotions and hopes more indians will be emotional to note the such big disparity. In a rough manner I (most of us )knows the reasons (system) behind such disparity. And usually only I take cares whether any of my acts ultimately are not behind such disparity.
After reading your blog I Cried...., suddenly a memory flashed in my mind wherein I made a mockery of one of the little begger some years agao. It was about 8 years back when I was working with C-DAC and was on assignment in Akola (Maharashtra). We all (my colleagues) went for a movie. It was a day when we all had received our first salary of our life, so it was a party mood.
We were waiting outside teh Cinema Hall for the show to end and then we could move in for ours. We were enjoying our "Bhel". It was then a pale figure, a boy around 3 years old came to me and asked for something to eat. He did not ask for money, but for one spoon of Bhel. He seemed to be suffering of malnutrition. I just said to him "Tere Baap ka maal hai kya" and literally pushed him away. The poor boy fell on road and injured his knee. The blood was flowing from his leg I was laughing at him.
That day I did not feel anything. Its now when I have a son, I'm feeling the guilt and many times that boy come to my dreams and haunt me.
Really, its pity that we do not help such people. Sometimes even if we want we cannot. But just by thinking what can we do or just by giving some money, can this problem be eliminated. I'm trying to get answer to this. No answer yet....
Hi Ankush, i was generally searching for words similar to "vaijapur","abhay joshi","bhale" etc and landed on your blog and has been reading almost for last 1 hour! This post in particular. What can be done? something has to be done. If every one , a simple common man like you , me and others feel that way then it can certainly bring the change. The real issue and one of my observation on current indian community during my india visits (I could be wrong though) is , for some reason, everyone is very harsh and non-sensitive towards others. There is no "giving", "helping" attitude. I don't understand why. In my view this attitude is the root cause. If this gets changed, things will certainly improve. Now how to change it??? Active NFOs similar to artOfLiving, Ramdev baba and many more is certainly a hope.People like you who genuinely feel about it is another very assuring hope. But what can be a guaranteed solution? Lallya (gadekar)
thts soooo damn sad!!!
i too cried after reading this post!
but ure right v cant do anything for such ppl!!!
but i dont get y doesnt dis supernatural power controlling the world do sumthn for such ppl!
y cant he/she make everyone equal!!???
but seriously watever u saw was really sad and frustrating too!
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