That Girl by the Roadside...

The girl by the roadside !

Walking in the bylanes of Delhi's Kamla Nagar market, adjacent to Delhi University's North campus, right opposite Hans Raj college, I saw something that evoked in me profound feelings of ambivalence. 

Sitting on the footpath by the road side was a girl, about 10-12 years old, with a weighing machine beside her, earnestly taking down notes from her Hindi text book. There were three things about this girl which impressed me:  1) This girl was unruffled by the passing crowd. I observed her for about 5 minutes. During the peak evening hours, when you inadvertently bump into one another, this girl was taking down her notes with utmost sincerity. 2) She was not begging or pestering anyone to get their weight measured, unlike several other street kids of the same age, who follow you with their knick knacks and whom you find hard to get rid off. Here was a girl teeming with a sense of self-respect, which could perhaps be owed to her education. 3) Lastly, there was no sign of discomfort as she was discharging her twin duties - that of studying and doing justice to the faith reposed by her parents and secondly that of supporting her family. It was as if adversity had brought out the best in her.

So amused I was at seeing this girl that I went to her,  got my weight measured, gave her about 5 times what she asked for, requested for a click and asked her to study and do well. While the right hemisphere of my brain was rejoicing in a deep sense of satisfaction that I had done my bit, the left hemisphere had started posing some uneasy questions. I tried not to think about them and looked at the girl again, only to be greeted by an innocent smile.

But somehow I felt there were a lot of feelings behind that smile that she wanted to convey; feelings which I could not find hard to imagine:-

" Hi Passerby ! You were generous. But do you really think it was your money that I was looking for? A simple glance at your past and you would realize that all this while it has always been about money. You took pride in donating generously to organisations that claim to educate a child on your behalf, without even caring to bother whether a soul actually benefitted ! You won't even remember that  whenever given a chance to donate either 'money' or 'efforts', you always preferred the former. It was always so difficult for you to get out of your slumber. You won't even remember the gleam of hope in my eyes when you did visit our slum once, never to return again. But sure, what you do remember is that false sense of satisfaction that you derived out of your perceived acts of charity all this while, don't u?"

"Today, I'm not accusing you of being lazy or being irresponsible. 

Today, I'm accusing you of being indifferent (which you will so vehemently deny) !"

"All this while you never realized that monetary support was perhaps the least I needed from you as an individual - provisions and initiatives of far more humongous proportions are being taken at sovereign and corporate levels (RTE has an estimated outlay of 1.71 lakh crore in next 5 years and Premji uncle and Shiv Nadar uncle have generously donated billions towards education). You berate India on its illiteracy in your coterie, you give all big talks about CSR and you sympathize. You never realized that I never wanted your sympathy. Your acts of sympathy, like those of today, only make me feel weak and marginalized. You never realized that what I did actually want was your Time so that the shortage of nearly five lakh teachers at primary level and about three lakh untrained teachers at elementary school level could be overcome for me and my friends. What I did actually want was your awareness - so that you can question how effectively RTE and RTI (to check actual spends on education) are being implemented and used. What I did actually want was just 'YOU'."

"But all this talk - is it going to make any difference to you? You will be as indifferent tomorrow as you were yesterday. You'll probably think about me for may be a little over 5 minutes, may be share your feelings on a blog or facebook and perhaps forget all about it, just as it happens every time."

"Is it going to change this time or am I asking too much?"

I still don't have an answer. Do you have one?