INDIACSR News Network
This is an incident of Chandani Chowk in Delhi. Me with my family was having lunch in the main market. Suddenly a small boy came running and the Manager sitting at the desk scolded and pushed him outside. The boy ran fanatically and I could hear a crowd of 10-12 people also running after him. They all were shouting ‘pakro pakro chor hai, chor hai…’. I could not resist myself and came out of the shop to see what the issue was.
The boy was running for his life but still got caught by the crowd and before some one could ask what had happened ‘some gentlemen’ had already slapped him. I could not take it and ran towards that child and after pushing few people could bring the child in my hold.
The child was not crying as if he was used to such beating. I asked what happened. Some one in the crowd replied that this boy is a thief. What did he steal ? Suddenly an old person came out from the crowd and informed that he picked up something from his basket and he was buying some items for the house. I could see, the boy was hiding something in his hand. I brought his hand forward and opened it. It had a small packet of biscuits, must be of five rupees.
The old man immediately reacted, ‘beta mujhse mang liya hota, chori kyon ke’ . The child now started crying. He tried returning the biscuits packet to him but the old man was generous, he said `ab mujhe mat de, kha le, vaise bhi bahut pitai kha chuke ha’. The crowd dispersed.
I could see many faces who had only come forward for hitting the child. You will find many such people who like criticizing everything in life and enjoy shouting slogans but do nothing for such children, these self styled advisors and critiques.
Here this old man was the last one standing with this child. His hand on his head, the child was eating biscuits. On one side helping such children was bad as this encourages child beggary, but on other hand, leaving a child hungry was even worse.
Vedanta Khushi – Care for the Underprivileged Children
Campaign “Khushi” aims to sensitize people at large, towards the need for care for these children – their Nutrition – Education – Health and overall development. The campaign has been launched through a blog http://www.khushi-