I went to Delhi in the year 2013 for further studies. There I saw the multitude of people, not only delhites but people from all corners of India and from abroad too. But what i failed to see were the children in my neighborhood. The ones who wear tattered clothes and roam around in the blistering heat of the day and have to go through the night without a blanket on them. Some go around selling things. Things like balloons, others stickers and some begging for some money.
I remember one such incident. I was going back to my PG and two boys came to me and said
"Bhaiya, weight napwaoge kya?" (Brother, need to get your weight checked?)
And I said I couldn't because I didn't have change then, and I didn't have it. What crossed my mind was that I will go to my PG and eat, although not that delicious, food but these kids are our here and they might have had nothing to eat. They sit there in the sun, working on their notebooks doing questions of maths, English, Science etc. They might have the will to study and they might be good at it, but will they be able to do what they dream about. There is another incident that I remember of. My friend showed me a video that he himself had made as a part of his class project. In that video he was interviewing a small kid who sold different things and in came an old man and started slapping them in front of the camera. He ordered the children to leave.
Many things have gone wrong and many continue to. There is what we call a "cost-benefit" analysis in which we compare the costs and the profit of a commodity. The benefits that we reap today, of globalization, privatization and industrialization, will bear a cost, not today but in the future, for which we wont be able to pay. We need to get a hold of our current future, these small children. Our Future.
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