The Indelible Image

                                  
"Please give me a roti," begged the boy.He was of slight build,wheatish complexion approximately our age.
Hearing some noise outside,my sister and I had opened the front door.
It was pouring cats and dogs.

"I'm hungry.Please give me something to eat."
His palms held out.
There was something so pathetic about his face,we stood transfixed.We quickly found something to share with him and watched as he trudged away slowly.

There was such a vulnerability about him,we still cannot forget, even after so many years.What exactly was going on in his life?
Was he an object of unwarranted physical and emotional abuse? At the hands of his drunk father.

Did he watch his mother being beaten up every night? Did he go days without food? What made him walk all the way through our spacious colony in such pouring rain? Unanswered questions plagued our tender minds.He should have been one of us,talented,educated given the best life could offer him.He shouldn't have been a vagabond.

We never saw him again.Young people,when you refuse to eat what your mom lays before you,grumbling,do spare a moment to imagine how many kids starve everyday.

I once saw a video of a man who worked in McDonalds or some joint like that,who collected half eaten discarded chicken pieces from the trash bin,and carried the wrapped stuff back home to serve his family and kids to a candlelit dinner.Their faces lighting up as if being given a five star treat.
Heart rending.

There was the story in the papers lately of kids going blind in Mumbai, for lack of nutrition.Their parents,being so poor..some earned only 1000 rupees a month,couldn't feed them properly.

Affluent women,dressed in their best,decorated with makeup even at home, find it so difficult to reach into their fat purses and give an extra rupee to their maids.

Friends,let's be more compassionate the next time we come across someone poor.We could have been in that state too,but for His grace.

As for that boy who haunts me day and night,asking for roti,I do wish,oh so much,that I would meet him one day and that his would be a rags to riches story!