While driving to my office, I would often see these two kids with a rag each on their backs digging through the trash in the dust bin outside our colony. Though seeing two little kids scavenging through the garbage for scrap when they should have been in school like most kids of their age, would bother me a bit at times but I would often ignore it and move on. I had never stopped to have a conversation with them before (haven't we, the more privileged ones, put our blinkers on?). But today I stopped. And decided to have a conversation with them.
As I approached them and asked them their names, initially they got frightened and sensing trouble, they started to run. But when I assured them that I wasn't going to hurt them and only wanted to have a friendly talk with them, they returned back to their childish best.
"Sahab, my name is Raju and he is my younger brother, Mohan", Raju said.
"Don't you go to school every day? I have often seen you here. Kids of your age should have been in schools at this time, busy studying. Don't you like going to school?", I asked them.
"Yes sahab, we used to go to to the municipality school near our house a few years back. But then, we stopped going. We are 5 members in our family, we two brothers, our parents and a little sister too. If we don't help our parents in work, how will we manage to eat, sahab? We sell these scrap to the kawadiwala and that helps in adding to our family income, however little that may be", said Raju.
He continued, "We don't even have a proper roof above our heads, how can we aford thinking about school? We too would love to go to school like other kids but more than education, we are right now more concerned about how to manage a square meal for each of us every day".
I couldn't find the appropriate words to say anything in reply. I had to labour hard to bring a half smile, but they weren't as poor as me in smiling! Even as I was walking back to my bike, I was wondering what if Raju and Mohan weren't born in a poor family and instead were born into a reasonably well-to-do family? They wouldn't have been wandering here and there each day, searching for scrap in the garbage bins, to sell for food. Instead they would have been busy studying. They wouldn't have to worry about their food ever. If only they were as lucky!
But then, why should one's poverty or richness decide whether one gets to calm his/her hunger pangs? There are still thousands of poor kids like Raju and Mohan, for whom education remains out of bounds because they have to think about feeding their stomach first.
This photo says it all, doesn't it?
When it comes to hunger, not every one is as privileged as we are to be able to enjoy full-size meals everyday. While a substantial portion of food often goes waste on our plates, there are thousands of less fortunate ones out there who don't even manage to get even a morsel of food for days together and struggle to stave off hunger every day! What is even more saddening is that little kids, who should have been going to schools, instead, often have to work to earn their share of food. Most of them have no other option left, many kids even work at menial jobs for food.
Was the hundred rupee note that I gave to Raju and Mohan as I walked away from them, enough? No. Even I knew it that it was just a stop-gap answer and not a permanent solution. Hunger still remains a major impediment to universal education, in spite of several Government schemes like mid-day meals in schools. We have to do our bit to ensure that no child remains devoid of education only because he/she has to worry about food.
