Saturday evening…. Me n my mum-in-law went to have ‘mehndi’ designed on our hands.The guy who was sitting at the mehndi counter was.. a 16 year old boy from UP. They had received their training of the art(well, drawing mehndi is an art in itself) from Jaipur and were working under some person(who probably had brought them here)..No education…no dreams..just a simple dream to earn money so as to make them capable of earning food and can support family…
This is one of those numerous instances where I have just wondered where the childhood or adolescence of this children would go???? Many children(legally under 18 are termed as children) like my mehndi guy , have lost their childhood somewhere. They have become more adults then probably the adults themselves.Pressure to earn and fend their family have led them to migrate to other states(and many of these children come from villages) and at a tender age leave their families. They are devoid of all their fundamental rights(right to education,right to live,right to play) but we do not care!! Do we?…… we just are bothered by whether we ll able to manage tickets for Dark Knight, manage to eat outside ,get good clothes to wear.. But we are never bothered about the small child asking for food at the McD outlet,we are not bothered about the barely out of teen boy working at a tea stall, we are not bothered by the young and adolescent daughteR of our domestic help who accompanies her regularly… have we ever stopped and thought about all this.. I see all this but i dont have the courage to say “No”..
Its about time we pay more attention to these small facts n incidences. Its about time that we have to recognise child as the most vulnerable one and take actions..n more importantly we need to ask ourselves what we can do to help de cause as an individual,group, community and member of the society. Can we bring back their childhood????
urnima 