As I approached the familiar traffic light that had disciplined my travel for over a year now, my auto rickshaw came to a jolting halt. The traffic light had switched its stance from burning amber to smouldering red. "Didi bas ek rupiah" said a scrawny child of nine as she nudged me out of my reverie. She was a young girl wearing dull green cotton pants and a t-shirt. Her hairs were cropped short and her palms were upturned for alms.
The Child Labour Act had recently been passed. This girl wasn’t in the definition of a child labourer as defined by the Act because she begged. Child labour has deeply entrenched roots in our country. This tree has been tough to uproot. Probably that can be attributed to centuries of class distinctions where a slave's child was a slave. Stirred with a pint of self pride and oodles of confusion on who holds what position meant children deprived of a childhood.
She looked expectantly as I started to take out a pack of chocolates that I carried for myself. Shimmering golden light streaked into the auto as I searched my bag. A sari clad woman walked past my auto with hurried footsteps. But the girl patiently waited.
But then she said what I would have never expected – “Didi bas ek rupiah.” Aghast at her action and the thought that she wasn’t concerned for the chocolates I die for, I said the chocolates would have to suffice. I later realised that for her money was primary. She would have relished the chocolates, who knows? But would have been contented by them if she knew that she could buy more.
I saw her figure slowly dissolve in the milieu. She slid behind a girl performing on the beats of a dholak. The light cooled to a lush green and my auto moved forward.
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