24.2.07

A Rupee in a MatchBox......

Please verify the design blah blah blah blah.....”

this msg kept on popping up on my screen even after i had checked the goddamn design for the millionth time.... i was pissed...!!!! decided to take a break from this stupid computer and go out for some fresh air.....

if i had a cam with me tat time, i'd have put the pic, but for now.... imagine this...

3 small kids, 1 girl and her 2 brothers (atleast tats wat i thought) sitting on the road pavement crossed legged and peering over something..... curiosity took the better of me and i had to go chk out wat they were peering over. Well, initially it was a lil difficult to see wat was in the small girl's tiny hands, but when the guy shifted his head, i saw a small matchbox sticking out of her hands. In the box i saw a few one rupee coins stacked neatly...... the girl was trying hard to remove one of them without dropping the remaining coins. I tried listenin to wat the whole conversation was abt, and i could make out bits and pieces of it


Brother : “...... saakagalla.....” (wont be enough)

Girl : “.....ond rupai.....(and wails)......” (one rupee only)


I just couldnt get bak to the world i belongd to (or was tat the same world i belonged to anyways ???)

When i was lost in my own thoughts abt the how neatly the kid was protecting her money, abt how many days (or months) she had to save to fill an entire matchbox with money.......
her brother, who was evidently elder than her, took a rupee coin and went to the corner of the road....

and as always, out of curiosity, i followed him....

he reached a small shop, followed by the other kids, and pointed at the box of chakkli to the lady in the shop.


After much miscommunication, the lady explained to the kids tat watever they wanted, it was worth more than a rupee........and she wouldnt give them until they gave more such one rupee coins.....


The smile the kids gave me after the lady filled their hands with more
chakklis than they could ever hold.... was priceless....!!!!!!

wat contrasts in life..... i sit here and write abt some kids on the road, who have to think twice to get a 50 paise eatable, whereas we, dont even think abt them.....!!!!!!!

maybe tat one rupee was their pocket money for the rest of the month, or maybe tat was the money their mother had saved from her drunken husband..... or maybe...... who know????


how many such kids roam around the streets of bangalore ??? wat are “we” doin for them??? well... we all know the answers ourselves......

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

It's when you truly see how people struggle, you realize what they have to go through. Poverty is smack dab right in front of us, and yet, we don't realize, do we? We aren't really doing anything to stop this sadness, even though we should. Why aren't we? Why?