Authored by Subramanian KS :
More than a thousand unknown faces passed through the sidewalk that night - faces that meant nothing to him. He didn't look up once to see who these strangers were. Nobody paid any special attention to him either. Those who did care to glance down at his nimble figure dismissed him as merely a boy, a shabbily dressed street urchin gyrating at the edge of the busy promenade trying to earn his daily bread, on a humid Sunday evening. Others, who stared at him a while longer, noticed that he was about 4 feet tall, wore ill-fitting, dull, grey pants which covered the length of his lower body. He also wore a washed-out, petal-covered shirt which shone brightly beneath the evening streetlights.
Yet others – the ones who stared long enough, observed beads of sweat trickled down his forehead; and that he had botched, rough, strewn hair, tied up and pinned neatly in place with a hair-clip. It was then that they’d realize that he was actually a girl, not more than 10 years old.Although nobody really looked at what she was wearing that night, just about everyone noticed what she had with her. With her left hand, she held on to a dozen long nylon strings which stretched up into the night sky, ending in twelve, beautiful moon-shaped balloons of various hues of red, pink and yellow. Half a dozen smaller balloons bobbed inside each of these bigger ones. A bright blue balloon was tied to the fingers of her right hand, which she deftly bounced off her clutched wrist. A hollow Boom! Boom! Boom! Reverberated into the night, enticing kids, young and old alike. Kids would run to her, mouths wide open, and gaze wild-eyed at the sight of the large boom-booms winding up the cloudless sky. They’d fight with their mamas and their papas and their siblings, throw tantrums, and occasionally one such drama would materialize into a sale for the little girl. What she had with her (a dozen plus boom-booms!) is every little kid’s fun dream. But the balloons gave the girl no immediate pleasure. Nothing did, actually. The occasional sale did not lift her mood either. She’d quietly pocket the money, pull out another balloon from her left hand, tie it around her wrist, and go about the Boom! Boom! Boom! routine all over again. She knew she had to sell them all to provide a decent meal for her family that night. And that’s all that mattered.
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Riju
said:
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... well written article on this topic.Do they really need all that sympaties???This is the easy for them to earn.If you ask them wheather they'll work for you. The answer is always no.Secondly where is ngo's and human right people who don't come up to this type of child labour....Sorry but I don't pity them . |
vms
said:
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... If you buy a balloon the little girl does that mean you condone or worse promote child labour? Or would you be doing a good deed buying from the little girl? The answer is not easy. I very often buy the wares (books, baloons ,flags) being sold by children who come up to my car window. On the other hand I rarely buy stuff from an adult who knocks on my window. I often wonder if the sympathy or a degree of guilt ( I cannot do much more for the child) that drives the purchase causes more harm than good. Maybe the sellers know that we are more likely to buy from children on the road. And that incentivizes them to keep these kids on the road. No easy answers. |
Subramanian KS
said:
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... Dear VMS, Like you said, no easy answers. Another image that comes to mind is the ghastly treatment vetted out to street kids in the movie Slumdog Millionaire. And to know that it happens right here in our own backyard is quite sad. It is a vicious circle I suppose. I came across the kid by chance when I was walking past a footpath in Sion. Her calm demeanor and maturity (despite being just a kid) is perhaps what made me write about her eventually. |
