I have seen him cleaning dishes. He is the one who picks up leftovers scattered on and around the dining table, and stacks our used plates before handing them over to the elderly lady who cleans them. Yesterday morning I saw him assisting one of the only two adult guys in the kitchen. He might not have known cooking, cleaning, and to bear up with crude words of people, before he stepped into this college. Unluckily he didn’t come here to study but came here in search of work. He now works here in our hostel mess, and is the youngest one among other children here like him who once came in search of work too. Our hostel mess runs through these people. Only two or three adult guys are here, and the rest bunch comprise of kids like him who as per looks seem not to have crossed the age of 12. And they run the entire mess and serve people staying in both of our hostels, First year hostel and Senior hostel. I forgot to mention, our hero manages the catering of our food too. He is the one who carries basket of puris from kitchen to our senior hostel’s dining hall. A kid of his age, with bitterness of luck we can never imagine to taste, roams before my eyes and I thank God for whatever he gave me. All of us should thank God for what they gave to us. And probably the kid thanks the God as well, who knows. People exist on this earth, you call it heaven or hell you say, with sorts of struggle in their lives that one can never imagine. Shivers come up when I recall of some stories deplorable even more than that of our hero’s. I have always called the luck as the ‘God’. Initially, it’s the luck ( what I call the God) decides our starting inning. Actions of that very individual then takes the charge and stride towards betterment.
The hero talks with me in the dialect of his hometown. I reply in the same dialect as well. He smiles every time I see him, and I observe the innocence on his face. I want to be honest. I get emotional quickly, but I tell you that you will get melted too once you look into his eyes for a few seconds. I am afraid, but very less people would consider it worth for taking it seriously even when I say just for a few seconds only. That’s how the majority of people have been keeping themselves away from the unjust that’s breeding around us. We don’t consider it worth to seek our attention. And why don’t we believe so? It’s the money what matters to most, and that accounts degree of worthiness for such people. Will it be wrong if I say that our Educational Institution too practices such an ideology? Employing kids cost far less than employing adults. Maximize the profit, and may be in the process, help underprivileged people who are in urgent need of money; this can be another viewpoint of our College Authorities. Whatever be the case, one thing can be asserted for sure that kids are being deprived of their childhood and are somewhere being forced to turn into adults too early. Further, I see the whole matter in a way where I find that unjust in society stays as it is.
I end up with a conclusion in my head that I draw in my own specific way, pardon me if I judge wrongly, ‘Unjustness is conserved. It can only be changed from one form to another’.
The hero talks with me in the dialect of his hometown. I reply in the same dialect as well. He smiles every time I see him, and I observe the innocence on his face. I want to be honest. I get emotional quickly, but I tell you that you will get melted too once you look into his eyes for a few seconds. I am afraid, but very less people would consider it worth for taking it seriously even when I say just for a few seconds only. That’s how the majority of people have been keeping themselves away from the unjust that’s breeding around us. We don’t consider it worth to seek our attention. And why don’t we believe so? It’s the money what matters to most, and that accounts degree of worthiness for such people. Will it be wrong if I say that our Educational Institution too practices such an ideology? Employing kids cost far less than employing adults. Maximize the profit, and may be in the process, help underprivileged people who are in urgent need of money; this can be another viewpoint of our College Authorities. Whatever be the case, one thing can be asserted for sure that kids are being deprived of their childhood and are somewhere being forced to turn into adults too early. Further, I see the whole matter in a way where I find that unjust in society stays as it is.
I end up with a conclusion in my head that I draw in my own specific way, pardon me if I judge wrongly, ‘Unjustness is conserved. It can only be changed from one form to another’.
Image courtesy : www.moma.org
