THE EMPTY STOMACH
Encompassed by the darkness of the other side of the world, strangled to death by its sheer brutal force, they live death in that dark and inconspicuous corner. Hardly cared for, hardly nurtured, hardly educated, they are. Their parents bring them to a life of the hardest degree, a life that sucks out the entire blood, the humanity, the soul from them. They have their backs lined against the wall, drooped shoulders under the curse of poverty. In one word, they are hardly existent.
The famished mendicant begging for an afternoon’s provender, the crying child wanting to eat, the waif’s dawdling life in the streets, the puerile teen moiling in households, factories—Ah! On one side of the street, lies the beggar’s “domicile” and on the other, the rich man’s skyscraper. Outside the car, is the poor dying under tremendous heat; inside, the parvenu’s AC is on.
Let us have a look at those desolate eyes—don’t they speak of a latent ambition, a prepatent desire for success? The gleam in them corroborates this very fact. Arbitrary distribution of resources has resulted in the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer by the day. This IS our world.
One cannot imagine a day without satisfying his prandial needs. It drives the hell out of that individual. The querulous attitude of the “social superiors” and no decision for rectification has led them into the wanton indifference towards those gaunt street dwellers. Yes, the street urchins—who run from here to there, beg for their siblings, swipe bread and sometimes being very much affected by their own condition, tears roll down those innocent cheeks. We cry over trivial matters, but they cry over issues of existence, issues of LIFE. Our woes are merely superficial; their, profound. We cry over our near ones’ demise, people show pity for us, sympathize with us; they too weep lowly, but have no one to commiserate with their undying woes. We drudge under the harshness of our master; they drudge under the harshness of bitter existence, battling to find a place in, as if, they are quite extraneous.
But they are part of the future citizens, they grow just like others do, but they are not nurtured. In order to make both ends meet, they take to pilferage. By the time they grow up, they are already a dacoit. Why not try to change the course of their lives? Provide them with education, proper food along with proper upbringing? Yes, that is possible only when the others take initiative. And then only shall their life take a better turn.
Let us fill the vacuity in the stomach, transform the huts into buildings, turn the ocular gleam into eternal glory. Let us make life better for those unlucky occupiers.
