Skip to main content

Onions or Living?

My office boy has a young baby girl who has just begun to take her first few baby steps. On my way out, I see her hanging on to the gates and making baby-like noises. She is an optimist; I have not seen her cry. Yesterday on my way back from the supermarket, I bought half a dozen bananas for her. The mother was surprised, it was unexpected.

At the supermarket, I remembered the choices I had as a kid. We were just about “middle-class” but we had enough food to eat. There were baskets of mangoes, litchis and five guava trees. There were biscuits which I and my sister would hog over and sweets during every festival. Today these choices are not available to 80% of Indian poor. The onion sells at INR 75/- a kilo, tomatoes at INR 72/-. Barely edible rice is over INR 30/- A doctor’s visit costs INR 250/-. Last year, over 17000 farmers chose to die rather than plod on until their next crop-loss. Many more will die. The rickshaw-wallahs, pavement dwellers, scavengers, municipality workmen, housemaids, office boys, masons, carpenters, plumbers, and the rest of the poor, will all die. They will die of hunger, or the sheer pressure to sustain life in Indian today.

The least I could do was giving the baby half a dozen bananas.

Comments

  1. Rajesh,
    The photograph you included with your blog today tells an important story. Everything about it is appropriate. The Indian flag in the child's hand is the perfect touch. Good thinking. Good eye.
    Jerral

    ReplyDelete
  2. Tha pict cute but the story very touching.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Awesome touching story. Thanks for sharing...

    ReplyDelete
  4. Yes, we know there are people in need everywhere, but sometimes the harsh reality can jump up and hit you in the middle of your chest and almost take your breath. Everything is relative but it is still good to remember that you might have an easier time than the next person - and usually we can all do something.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Long Winter Chill

If I could do a Neruda, You would have smelt of summer roses And Autumn pine. There would have been sheer love Of the kind that causes our hearts to ache And loneliness bordering the divine. You would have had so many secrets Welling up as in a girly giggle And so few friends who would hear them all. I am no Neruda I can't paint you a Summer breeze Amidst this long winter chill.

Hush

You don't have to tell me. I just know. Its that little sniffle that comes through The unexplained pauses The slow responses I know when you call Just because you needed to cry.

That Fluttering of Broken Wings

If you were to cross the road and hurt your toe, I know that I will never know. As we go on to take different roads and move on across different shores, there is something that happens to our relationships. Something that estranges, disconnects, disintegrates. I know that you still think of me. I know this because I find myself thinking about you. And thoughts rarely get seeded on their own. It comes from you to I and from I to you until one of us is alive. Old relationships rarely die. Like broken winged moths, they hang around dark alleys of forgotten memory lanes. Ever so often, I can hear one of them flutter its wings. Not too close but never too far.