Kailash Satyarthi had a Nobel Idea many years back that changed not only his life but the lives of millions of children in India forced to work as child labours. His relentless and silent pursuit towards freeing children of bondage of work and giving them back their beautiful childhood has been finally recognized, by none other than the highest awarding body in the world. A Noble for Peace is not only a recognition to Kailash Satyarthi's mission but a shot-in-the-arm of all those working towards eradicating child labour in India and in the entire sub-continent.
Despite Kailash Satyarthi's Noble Prize winning effort, much remains to be done. Key to uprooting the evil of child labour lies in knowing and eliminating causes that force a child into becoming a labour. Media reports emerging after announcement of Noble to Kailash that India's national capital is also the hub of child trafficking and child labour. Large number of kids trafficked from poorer centres of the country work as labours in the capital in inhumane and often dangerous conditions. Pity and shame on us.
A civilization's image is determined by how it treats its women and children. And we have fared abysmally low in that grade. Till women continue to be unsfae and children remain vulnerable in our country, we may suspend this pride that we often have on thousands of years old civilization that we have inherited,
More strength and life to Kailash Satyarthi and people like him who lead the fight against exploitation of children.
To such angels like Kailash and to those millions of children who suffer in our nation, I dedicate these two poems of mine. I wrote both of them in my growing up years, more than two decades back and reflect my feelings and frustration at watching children suffer the devil of trafficking and the curse of child labour -
A Child called Labour
This is not a song of bliss and solace,
nor a praise of a maiden’s beauty and grace.
Neither is it an epitome of courage and valour,
but a story of a child called labour.
The protagonist is none of great grandeur,
nor a one shining in impeccable splendour,
He is the one coloured with grease and paint,
smelling sweat that makes 'delicate' faint.
The earth laps him up like a mother,
the sky provides him his only shelter.
The ‘vagabond’, the ‘renounced’, the ‘solitary’,
he is the ‘forsaken’, made to work and to carry.
He sweats and bleeds from day to dusk,
perhaps for that ever
eluding musk.
But that musk eludes him forever,
for he is destined to cry & to suffer.
The poor soul rolls the heavy cart,
the little hands
toil hard in the mart.
The factories swallow him with the siren.
the furnace melts childhood along with iron.
A cruel dream dawns on him every morning,
the whip of
reality and reasoning.
When cozily wrapped are the privileged bod,
working are these children of a lesser god.
The nature makes a mockery of his state,
the ‘cruel rain’ washes off his fate.
He is burnt by the ungracious summer,
and frozen by the freezing winter.
After the day’s
work, where to, is he led,
but to the pavement, to his only bed;
Where in the dirty linen patched with worries,
he drowns his pains and miseries.
Then comes the call of the reason,
Which makes him work in every season,
One that so often has made him to blubber,
the ‘fire’ in the stomach called hunger.
A piece of bread or left out of the master,
is all in the name of food, that he can muster.
Soulfully he looks at the delicacy,
an earning of
joy and ecstasy.
But oh! someone
plays a brazen game,
Our heads sink with unfathomable shame,
When the’ hound of humanity’ manages to cope,
and snatches away his food and his hope.
Dazed by his fate he looks at the sky,
he doesn't know whether to laugh or to cry,
Is this his tryst with destiny,
full of horror, pain and agony?
He closes his eyes to resent his fears,
but does sleep come in eyes full of tears!
His tears are lost in the darkness of the night,
for no one is touched by his sorrow & his plight.
***
Little Kishen
In a small corner
away from the teaming crowd,
sat Kishen, the little boy,
covered in a shroud.
Tears rolled down his cheeks
as he cried in pain,
disgraced by the cruelty of his master,
he had been whipped again.
While cleaning the bowl of milk,
his childhood had made a wish,
to taste the left-out drops of elixir
that other privileged relish.
But cruel was his fate,
like the world and his master,
who kicked and abused him
for this ‘unpardonable blunder’.
His mistake was to dream,
to make simple wishes of life,
for he was poor and downtrodden,
destined to struggle in strife.
Nine delicate years in this world,
an age for sweets and toy,
Kishen had so longed
even for a moment of joy.
Destined to work tirelessly
from the day he lost his father,
he toiled to make both ends meet,
to fend himself and his sick mother.
The day even since
with his small hands,
he searched for the mirage
in the myriad of sand.
By now hunger, thirst and pain
had pushed the young soul
into an unconscious sleep;
Or was it curtain to his role?
Rain splashed on his body,
rudely awaking him to reality,
as he struggled to stand
he was mocked by humanity.
Drenched all over,
he trudged shivering in cold.
Suddenly he fell across
when he could no more hold.
The storm had passed,
as had the night,
there lay near the roadside
an object motionless in white.
Motionless, lifeless,
he was like a stone.
Kishen had died
his mother left behind to moan.
Onlookers and passer-byes
stopped for a while out of curiosity;
Mercifully they threw some coins;
Even a coffin was in scarcity.
Kishen’s mother couldn’t cry any more,
for even the tears had dried,
as she stared at the coins
for which her son had died.
She lifted her dead son,
lovingly in her arms,
and walked towards the cemetery
leaving behind the alms.
She cried and smiled
and screamed in pain -
“How many more Kishens have to die
of poverty and disdain?”
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