They all are so fearless, somehow innocently rude, using rough words with each other and the people who avoid their panhandles. People walking around render an ugly look at them as if they have stolen all their precious entities, not all though, some glare at them with sympathy yet doing nothing except silently walking away. The poorest thing on their behalf being that such destiny had been chosen for them at god’s land, ugly sources anonymous. They all are innocent from cradle to grave yet they have a destiny to suffer, to struggle for food and money, to compete with the hideous trend of society that sequesters them as if they have just no rights to smile, cheer and be happy. Such is the life of poor street children in our country.
I confess that I fall in the second category of people for such children. Yet there have been moments in my life where one of the street children would interpolate my callous attitudes of affording them sympathy rather than a hand of friendship, avoiding them as far as possible rather than an embrace and teach me a bunch of beautiful chapters that they too have the ability to struggle for their happiness. The hospice they are in may look subtle and fragile to the world, they innovate ahead to make it a land of shield defense where even the cruelest human being would find hard to show brutality at them. Here is the best chapter worth sharing.
It was some eight years behind the scene when I happened to meet a little girl on my course of travel from my home town Mahendranagar to the capital. She climbed in our bus and started hobnobbing with the passengers for some money. Yet a cruel animal in the form of a human started acting pervert with the little child who hadn’t even stepped into her teens. I don’t know about other passengers in the bus but my heart always condemns me of being more frantic than that animal because I never dared step ahead to help the girl like everyone in the bus just because he was an army officer and army had supreme power at that time in our country. The girl instead stared at every face at first as if she was waiting for someone to save her from the savage. She found no one, accumulated courage astonishingly, a moment later people saw her escaping away as fast as she could after spitting at the army officer’s face. Filled with loathe and anger the officer chased her, amazingly she had already skulked in one of the huts in the slum. Simultaneously, leaving some mysterious reasons behind, the officer refused to travel in our bus.
This incident kept haunting me on ample occasions until I saw her again on my way back to my home town, this time in a completely different place. Luckily for me or her, I don’t know, there were no such perverts on this bus. When she approached me after going to a number of passengers in search of money, I smiled at her generously, “You are a brave child and I am sorry that I couldn’t help you that moment.” She spontaneously remembered me as a face of the cowards witnessing that incident, gracefully said, “Its okay brother. Indeed I feel surprised that for the first time someone talked so nicely with me otherwise I generally expect rude behaviors from people.” Among many things she told was her beautiful name Ichya and that she was doing all this for surviving herself from orphanage. I still think about reasons why she didn’t take anything from me even the small amount of money I wanted to render her; instead she thanked me for the way I behaved with her. In all of my journeys to and fro since then, my eyes definitely look for cute little Ichya, however, I still haven’t been able to find her.
Many people proudly proclaim children of being images of god, however, inside they are far more unforgiving than their fake identities. It’s such a dreadful thing to see that some of the parents use their own children as a weapon to get away from their poverty. Ichya told me stories of many of her such friends, shedding a quote of maturity that she was indeed happy not to live the destiny like her friends.
They may be spread all over our country in different forms showing a variety of nature and make up from the most remote villages to the most developed streets of the capital, regardless of wherever they are, most know to enjoy their own small world with hale and happiness. I have seen them taking nap in their own unique sojourns, play even with the most unattractive dogs and pigs around them which for them would be the most beautiful creatures in the earth; share whatever they have with each other and sacrifice their nights for finding sleeps to their friends. Well off children may learn about selfishness due to their upbringing but they would never. The truth that they are their own teachers will help them to be far from being selfish. They all just wait for perceptions to be changed when people think about them like a small street girl poorest at money but richest at heart taught me a lesson to endeavor to be a part of their problems and feel the satisfaction that follows.
