Looking out the window

Looking out the window, I saw a routine view; children playing cricket on the street, a teenage boy flying a kite in the corner, another riding a bicycle -  a mundane view which always made me envy these kids for their carefree life. They could be whatever they wanted to be without the fear of consequences, and were lucky enough not to be bogged down by thoughts of a future.

Suddenly, my serene, mundane and routine view was disturbed. A young boy was standing knee deep in a pile of garbage, sorting through it collecting dry garbage in a dirty sack hung over his slender shoulder, to be sold to industries. He was so immersed in this activity that I could hear him humming to himself, oblivious to the stark difference between his surroundings and his condition. I could not envy this kid. I wondered why? Why is there so much difference in the life of this kid and the other’s playing cricket on the street? What did he do to deserve a life surrounded by other people’s garbage? What will he remember from his childhood?

And I wondered with fear, what if he realized all this and started asking questions? Will he forgive me, or for that matter, anyone for his misery? Will his actions be justified, when he decide to take revenge from the world? Are we not responsible for this injustice? “Come on, of course I had nothing to do with all this”, I tried to justify to myself. Ironically, I was more threatened by the consequences of this unfairness rather than feeling responsible for this wrong.

Some days later I came across somebody who brought this incident back to me. It was a kind of “in your face” experience. I met a lady who was working for these kids because she “felt responsible for this injustice”. She said, “No child in the world deserves to live their life in garbage and waste”. She invited me to visit her organization.

I expected it to be a flashy NGO, but instead it was her home, Headquarters of Aabroo Welfare Organization (AWO). We went from there to her school, where such children were provided education and lunch. When I entered the premises, the place was like “Kingdom of Heaven”. I cannot possibly explain my overwhelming feelings seeing those children so confident, hopeful and cultured! They knew the basic manners better than our children. They could even speak English!

The lady in charge started telling me how she started all this with the children of her housemaid. She has now 5 running schools, all near the slums of the city. There were paid teachers, as well as volunteers from high profile universities and schools, people who felt responsible, people who wanted to make a change. When I asked about revenue generation, the lady said that earlier they used charity primarily. However now they are self sustaining through their “dry waste project”. The idea was given by the children themselves, of collecting dry waste from the homes in different localities and then selling it to industries. Now their vans pick up dry waste once a week from every locality and then they sell it to the paper industry.

Visiting them was an eye opening experience. It washed away a little guilt and gave me some modicum of satisfaction that somewhere out there somebody was saving us from the consequences of injustice. However, it also gives me hope that all is not lost for these children; they just might get a childhood worth remembering!