Mummy

“Mummy”, she said. Without feeling. Almost a prosaic recital, of a dream long given up. Habit likely formed at lunchtime, being fed and pampered by mummy. Swallowing the lump that formed at the back of my throught, I asked the little girl again: “curry idette mole ?” -> “some more curry, love ?”. “Venda”, she answered, almost mechanically. I wrenched my heart, and empathy, away from the little angel, to the little one right next to her, equally eager for lunch, equally in need of love, waiting with calm anticipation for her turn to be served, p’haps pampered a bit……

An afternoon serving lunch at the local orphanage is well advised as an effective antidote to self pity. It makes me wince with shame and embarrassment at the thought that my middle class mind has even considered complaining about the privileged life I have had so far. Some of these kids have been literally rescued from the clutches of cruel relatives and mafias, who have, more often than not, mutilated their bodies, in order to make “effective” child beggars. It is a cruel and illegal industry in child trafficking, that needs desperately, for the sake of those vulnerable angels, to be stopped.

But how can an ingrown and selfish society such as mine do this ? Is it even possible ? This is a society that is hypocritical enough to “protest” when australian cricketer Steve Waugh visited the orphanage in question, to donate money. Assuming that the rumours were right, and there were misappropriation of donor funds, one would presume that protesters would be worried about the effect this would have on the children resident at the orphanage ? Or perhaps some of the protesters were in fact regular donors ? I don’t have the facts, but  from hearsay, and having grown up here enough to guess, I daresay not! Do we have the altruism to even empathise to the slightest degree ? Or are our selfish, racist minds seared so much by religion and the rat race, to not even care, perhaps even scorn people trying to make a difference ?

I believe that the internet is going to make a huge impact, when the haves meet the have nots. Visual media is powerful enough to shock and shame us. P’haps jolt us enough to do something about the injustice and disparity to which we have become blinded. But maybe, just maybe, impressionable young minds, in young India, will see and question the older folks just ever so slightly before they are brainwashed into their caste and creed, and perhaps one in a million would survive and do something about it ? That would be a thousand people! I see change already