Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Who'd take it from here?

Yesterday night, we went to a restaurant for dinner. It was a pretty decent place, in a posh area, and all the crowd consisted of sophisticated looking families. As we were deciding on our dishes, I got to see a young boy cleaning tables there and picking up plates. He must be aging somewhere in between 11 to 14 years. He looked quite out of place, you know, means all the other staff there was adult, except this little boy.
I mean, not that, its very uncommon in our country, I mean, yeah, we have adapted ourselves quite well with the daily sightseeing of children bagging, or selling small goodies at traffic signals, or working as a Chhotu, in roadside dhabas. But still, I don't know why, that boy strike me as different, I called him to our table, tried to ask him, "Do you work here all day long?" You know, thinking that he sight be working part time, and going school in day time. But he did not care answering my question properly, murmured something and went away.
Clearly, he understood, what I was trying to ask, and did not want to answer it. Talking to me in details about his personal life might have caused him his job, and he knew it. So he also knew perfectly well, that he is supposed to be studying and not working in hotels, and that this is not only illegal but also a crime. So he refrained himself from talking out of it.
It was like; mind your own business madam!! You do not need to do social service where it is not desired.
What I realize is, we Indians, do not make our choices based on what we want, but we make them on the basis of what we are supposed to be. So the kid might have wanted to study, he knew if he made some effort he might've succeeded in it (government is making some effort for such children), but he was not doing it. the reasons behind which, should not be a problem for us to think of. So this poor, illiterate population is not there only because they are not getting proper facilities or whatsoever. It is also because; they don't see education making drastic changes to their living standard. It's because they have completely lost faith in the government, and in the fact that country's progress depends upon them and vice-versa. It's because this wave of economical growth, globalization and rupee getting stronger, is doing nothing for them, except making rich even richer, and poor getting poorer.Now can somebody take it form here???

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