Children of a Lesser God?
An eight-year old famished boy is howling for milk. His frustrated mother pours a colourless liquid into the glass the child helds out expectantly towards her. The little boy drains the liquid in a hurry.
After a while, the mother is seen carrying her son who had fallen asleep in the dirty yard outside, into the hut. The boy had apparently passed out after drinking the liquid. The liquid his mother poured into that little boy’s glass was hard liquor.
This is not a cooked up story, it is the cold-blooded reality of everyday life in a village called Saharsa in Bihar.
Shocked? Well, I am still reeling from it. I happened to watch this in a television channel and am yet to recover from the brutal unfairness of it all.
Children of this village are given hard liquor to fill their stomachs, to prevent them from pestering their parents for food, and to eventually push them into a deep unnatural slumber. Yes, sleeping children are never hungry and do not cry for food. If these little children are fortunate, they will get to have one meal a day; otherwise, they will have to retire at night with only alcohol in their rumbling stomachs and hazy, inebriated dreams to keep company.
Even the adults consume hard liquor to keep hunger temporarily at bay and to acquire some unnatural energy to continue with their menial day to day jobs.
Is it not truly shameful and disgusting that such unfair divide exists in our country even after fifty nine years of independence? On one side, we proudly exhibit meteoric industrial boom, glitter and glamour of the movie world and fashional IT parks and shopping malls in every nook and corner of the country. And on the other, this utterly tragic reality of hungry drunken children.
No wonder it is rightly said that India truly lives in her villages.
Next time you coax your child into drinking milk, do remember the little children in a remote village in Saharsa who dream of quenching their thirst with milk, but instead end up getting drunk with hard liquor.
An eight-year old famished boy is howling for milk. His frustrated mother pours a colourless liquid into the glass the child helds out expectantly towards her. The little boy drains the liquid in a hurry.
After a while, the mother is seen carrying her son who had fallen asleep in the dirty yard outside, into the hut. The boy had apparently passed out after drinking the liquid. The liquid his mother poured into that little boy’s glass was hard liquor.
This is not a cooked up story, it is the cold-blooded reality of everyday life in a village called Saharsa in Bihar.
Shocked? Well, I am still reeling from it. I happened to watch this in a television channel and am yet to recover from the brutal unfairness of it all.
Children of this village are given hard liquor to fill their stomachs, to prevent them from pestering their parents for food, and to eventually push them into a deep unnatural slumber. Yes, sleeping children are never hungry and do not cry for food. If these little children are fortunate, they will get to have one meal a day; otherwise, they will have to retire at night with only alcohol in their rumbling stomachs and hazy, inebriated dreams to keep company.
Even the adults consume hard liquor to keep hunger temporarily at bay and to acquire some unnatural energy to continue with their menial day to day jobs.
Is it not truly shameful and disgusting that such unfair divide exists in our country even after fifty nine years of independence? On one side, we proudly exhibit meteoric industrial boom, glitter and glamour of the movie world and fashional IT parks and shopping malls in every nook and corner of the country. And on the other, this utterly tragic reality of hungry drunken children.
No wonder it is rightly said that India truly lives in her villages.
Next time you coax your child into drinking milk, do remember the little children in a remote village in Saharsa who dream of quenching their thirst with milk, but instead end up getting drunk with hard liquor.
posted by Gayathri Varma @ 3:20 AM
7 comments
7 Comments:
It really is shocking. How do you tell these people they are ruining their health or their children's futures, when their lives are a big question mark every single day?
I really feel sorry for the mother who has to force liqour down her child's throat. I wonder what it is that stops her from forcing some poison down his throat? I think it can only be Hope, eternal hope that soon they will have a better day with atleast one square meal! Urban children happily waste their food, get fussy and finicky with taste and style. We really live in a starkly diverse country! Only you can bring up such hitting topics in your blog!
Its not shocking, its utterly depressing!! Its so sad that along with the great strides that we have made in so many areas we have not been able to ensure that the poor of the country....if not keeping pace....did not lag so far behind!!But thats the bitter reality of life.
The poor have their own compulsions. Then "why do they have children if they are so poor??" one may ask .....but that again is a completely different story......once again another compulsion.......it just goes on and on....a vicious circle which is impossible for them to get out of!!
So while one should laud the achievements of the country, such realities of life as u have mentioned make us aware that India has still 'miles and miles to go before she sleeps'....makes us feel pretty helpless, but we each of us can do our little bit cos 'boond boond se banta saagar',remember?
Hi,
Thanks for your elaborate information about the work of Dr. Yunus. I appreciate the knowledge transfer and am sure, so will my readers.
By the way, I am NOT GLOSSING OVER POVERTY, that is the last thing I will ever do. I am just shocked and sad that we let such brutal unfairness exist in our society. I just thought in my humble way, I should spread awareness that such hell continues to exist in the midst of us, so that we do not remain blissfully aware of it.
And last but not least, kindly enlighten us as to how you are associated with helping Dr. Yunus and if there is any way I can be of any help.
It is strange that you seem to have an aversion towards citizen journalists when you yourself are apparently one!!!
I really enjoyed looking at your site, I found it very helpful indeed, keep up the good work.
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Hi Anonymous.
Thanks for your encouragement in all my posts.
Hey what a great site keep up the work its excellent.
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This is unbeleivable and totally unacceptable for a civilized society. I read it somewhere that inorder to go for hunting some tribesmen give their children " hashish" in the morning to their children so they will sleep till they come back. But here this seems to be a different case. Instead of milk, she could have used just plain water; but why on earth liqour !
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