CHAIRity:

Follow us:WhatsappFacebookTwitterTelegram.cls-1{fill:#4d4d4d;}.cls-2{fill:#fff;}Google NewsIt takes me an hour to reach office on a real good day. Traffic jams... red lights. And the numerous children who throng and beg at these red lights, offering to clean windscreens and wishing for your love life to succeed. Little children, no more than 10, scurry about in the hot Delhi summer from car to car, hoping for that one rupee coin flung at them.

It breaks my heart, though I made a decision long time back never to give them money! So I stack up on biscuits and sweets and hand it to them when they come knocking on my window. After all the money they collect is never theirs. The begging mafia uses these little kids as fronts to fleece us.

But what about those kids? In our daily scramble to reach from point A to B, to reach our offices and mindlessly sit in our cabins and stare at the computers. shooting off emails,do we spare a moment to reflect on their plight? I do, but unfortunately like each and every one of us it's armchair concern.

What have I done that will enable even one of those thousand children to to be able to go to school, get an education...HAVE A LIFE. Nothing. So I buy a few CRY cards, donate my old clothes and distribute a few sweets to these half naked angels. And think I have upped my karma by a few percentage points.

The ticker in my life is scrolling my ambivalence towards the unfortunate.

Why am I writing this? Because last week I came across a smiling bundle of joy on the streets, walking up to my car and asking not for my money but for that bottle of water lying next to me. He was thirsty. Had just been shooed away from the cars in front of me and I was going to do the same. Except this time, I looked in his eyes, and knew that I couldn't wish him away. I gave him the bottle and a fiver and prayed to god to change the light to green so that I could speed away and not be confronted by own selfishness. Of course the lights didn't turn green and the kid took my bottle, and sat on the divider and happily drank it, relishing every drop.

That bottle was snatched away by a bigger kid.

The younger one..sitting on the divider, shrugged his shoulders and moved on to the next car, accepting his fate. A kid that young doesn't need to do that. He is too young for accepting anything but happiness and love.

I hid in shame, because I couldn't do a thing. All the money I made couldn't change a thing. What use is money if it can't take away the suffering of a little one.

I write this because I felt hallow. I write this because I don't see that kid in that red light anymore. I wish I could have apologized to him for being a selfish prick. I wish I could have been half a man and snatched that water bottle back from the big bully and handed it back.

Which ever red light you are , my half naked angel...I hope you don't stay there for long and are given a decent life by someone who will actually do it , rather than writing about it.

Maybe one day I'll do whatever it takes to save a child from the streets.

I have to.

Because I'll come face to face with the maker one day and she will ask me just one question before letting me step in to her realm...

WHY didn't I do anything?




first published:May 13, 2006, 13:08 ISTlast updated:May 13, 2006, 13:08 IST
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