A construction is going on in my neighbourhood from the last 4 months. Being immediate neighbours, we have to put up with all the noise and the dust from the place. Thankfully i am not at home most of the day. But my mother has to face all the music almost the entire day.
There is a father-son duo working there as unskilled labourers and sometimes they act as watchmen to the property. Both are descent and relatively clean for unskilled labourers in India.
I have been observing the duo for about four months now. They are very silent and whenever they dirty our roof or our premises, they promptly come and clean up the place even without we telling them. They are good people.
About couple of weeks back, i asked the son if he had ever been to school and his answer was "NO". He had never been there. I asked his father why his son was never sent to school. His father just kept quite. The son is not more than 12 or 13 years old. He does a lot of physical labour all day. He has been thought to tell his age as "17". He insisted that he was 17 on my repeated questioning. One can easily make out that he is not more than 12 or at max 13.
In India, Child labour is banned. Also primary education is every child's right. But this poor kid is denied of basic education and also has to put up with hard physical labour everyday. He spends his entire day with dust.
Having been involved in some sort of active citizenry, i know most of the local officials here very well. Thanks to my repeated petitions and complaints to the corporation and the CMO, the corporation authorities know me by name and face. I meet some of them almost every week. So i decided to take the issue of the boy to the corporation this week and get him enrolled in a school. Last week, i requested the executive engineer to help me and he put me in touch with the concerned eduction official. All this happened without the knowledge of the boy.
Today the story is different. The boy comes to my house at 8:30 PM and asks my mother for "Saaru"(ಸಾರು) (It is eaten with rice). Their normal practice is to cook/bring rice from home and buy saaru in a local restaurant(a cart like thing on the road) here. The boy tells my mother that " ಇವತ್ತು ಹೋಟೆಲ್ ನಲ್ಲಿ ಹತ್ತು ರೂಪಾಯೆ ಕೊಟ್ಟರು ಸಾರು ಕೊಡಲ್ಲ ಅಂತಾರೆ " (They are refusing to give saaru (sambar) even if i give ten rupees ). He did not have money to buy it and so he had come to our house.
My mother gave him something and i followed this boy to his place. He and his father had one big box of rice and thats all. I simply said that the boy must go to school and he will get free afternoon meal.His father in a soft voice said, put together he and his son earn 300 per day (more than 1 dollar) . Out of which 64 rupees goes in commuting. So they are left with 236 rupees. Apart from these two they have the boy's mother and boy's younger sister at home. So they are a family of four. The mother cannot work because of some trouble she had during the delivery of second baby. So here is a family of four with daily earnings of 236 rupees; out of which they have to pay for their house, fuel, clothing and food. Remember that there is no guarantee that they will be employed 365 days in a year. The father says, if his son does not work, then atleast one person in the house will have to sleep hungry everyday. I tried to convince him saying that the son going to school and having a free lunch there would compensate for this. But his immediate reaction was that, the schools are closed for 3 months in a year and if the son gets into a habit of not working, he would not work during the 3 months when the schools are closed. I had no answer to him. He asked me if i could atleast guarantee work for both of them during these 3 months. I again had no answer.
The second point is, this is a family which is struggling for 10 rupees. The boy says that he is not getting saaru EVEN FOR 10 RUPEES. One can make out from his tone what 10 rupees really means to him. At time when food prices are sky rocketing, its really difficult for the poor to afford certain basic needs.
Given this scenario, i am not sure if i will be doing any good by forcing the kid into the school. I am not sure if this would do any good to him and his family. This is a serious contradiction for which i am not sure if i can get an answer.
All this makes me feel how lucky i am to have been born and brought up in a well to do family, to have got education and many other luxuries in life. But at the same time i feel this world is cruel and totally unfair.
There are millions of such families in our country. There are many more who are worse than the this family. India probably has most number of dollar billionaires in the world but also has 830 million people earning less than 20 rupees per day. We, the educated young blood of the country must come out with innovative economic solution to these problems. NGO kind of activity or charity or romanticizing with these issues, in my view will take us nowhere.
There is a father-son duo working there as unskilled labourers and sometimes they act as watchmen to the property. Both are descent and relatively clean for unskilled labourers in India.
I have been observing the duo for about four months now. They are very silent and whenever they dirty our roof or our premises, they promptly come and clean up the place even without we telling them. They are good people.
About couple of weeks back, i asked the son if he had ever been to school and his answer was "NO". He had never been there. I asked his father why his son was never sent to school. His father just kept quite. The son is not more than 12 or 13 years old. He does a lot of physical labour all day. He has been thought to tell his age as "17". He insisted that he was 17 on my repeated questioning. One can easily make out that he is not more than 12 or at max 13.
In India, Child labour is banned. Also primary education is every child's right. But this poor kid is denied of basic education and also has to put up with hard physical labour everyday. He spends his entire day with dust.
Having been involved in some sort of active citizenry, i know most of the local officials here very well. Thanks to my repeated petitions and complaints to the corporation and the CMO, the corporation authorities know me by name and face. I meet some of them almost every week. So i decided to take the issue of the boy to the corporation this week and get him enrolled in a school. Last week, i requested the executive engineer to help me and he put me in touch with the concerned eduction official. All this happened without the knowledge of the boy.
Today the story is different. The boy comes to my house at 8:30 PM and asks my mother for "Saaru"(ಸಾರು) (It is eaten with rice). Their normal practice is to cook/bring rice from home and buy saaru in a local restaurant(a cart like thing on the road) here. The boy tells my mother that " ಇವತ್ತು ಹೋಟೆಲ್ ನಲ್ಲಿ ಹತ್ತು ರೂಪಾಯೆ ಕೊಟ್ಟರು ಸಾರು ಕೊಡಲ್ಲ ಅಂತಾರೆ " (They are refusing to give saaru (sambar) even if i give ten rupees ). He did not have money to buy it and so he had come to our house.
My mother gave him something and i followed this boy to his place. He and his father had one big box of rice and thats all. I simply said that the boy must go to school and he will get free afternoon meal.His father in a soft voice said, put together he and his son earn 300 per day (more than 1 dollar) . Out of which 64 rupees goes in commuting. So they are left with 236 rupees. Apart from these two they have the boy's mother and boy's younger sister at home. So they are a family of four. The mother cannot work because of some trouble she had during the delivery of second baby. So here is a family of four with daily earnings of 236 rupees; out of which they have to pay for their house, fuel, clothing and food. Remember that there is no guarantee that they will be employed 365 days in a year. The father says, if his son does not work, then atleast one person in the house will have to sleep hungry everyday. I tried to convince him saying that the son going to school and having a free lunch there would compensate for this. But his immediate reaction was that, the schools are closed for 3 months in a year and if the son gets into a habit of not working, he would not work during the 3 months when the schools are closed. I had no answer to him. He asked me if i could atleast guarantee work for both of them during these 3 months. I again had no answer.
The second point is, this is a family which is struggling for 10 rupees. The boy says that he is not getting saaru EVEN FOR 10 RUPEES. One can make out from his tone what 10 rupees really means to him. At time when food prices are sky rocketing, its really difficult for the poor to afford certain basic needs.
Given this scenario, i am not sure if i will be doing any good by forcing the kid into the school. I am not sure if this would do any good to him and his family. This is a serious contradiction for which i am not sure if i can get an answer.
All this makes me feel how lucky i am to have been born and brought up in a well to do family, to have got education and many other luxuries in life. But at the same time i feel this world is cruel and totally unfair.
There are millions of such families in our country. There are many more who are worse than the this family. India probably has most number of dollar billionaires in the world but also has 830 million people earning less than 20 rupees per day. We, the educated young blood of the country must come out with innovative economic solution to these problems. NGO kind of activity or charity or romanticizing with these issues, in my view will take us nowhere.
Very good one, by reading the blog i can sense to an extent how the boy n his father really struggle everday in order to keep their family going.
ReplyDeletepoverty & hunger will haunt them throughout, i hope they come up n earn good money. We are truly lucky in comparison to them, its just how the world is.....
It will be difficult for the family in the short span of time ahead. But in the long run, the family will reap the benefits from the boy's education. I think he must go to school.
ReplyDeleteIt is a classic example where one need not go look into various surveys to know inclusivity of our growth. Our growth outcome is next to our home where we can find chronic poverty, illiteracy, malnourished children etc. No govt policies can do better unless there is an attitudinal change among the people. For example in this case, if there could have been a change in the thinking level of people, the person who is constructing the house could hve said to 2 the child's father to join the child to school & @ the same time he would give him the wage of that child.
ReplyDeleteNaturally this amt of change is very difficult 2 come in the society & it's a long drawn process. But we need 2 hope for it & the first change has 2 come from us.
It sounds like the main reason for the son not going to school is the lack of wages he will generate. If you can compensate for the wages in some way, then the it will easier to convince the family. Two possible ways to do this.
ReplyDelete1) The govt has to realize that just providing free education and meals for the child alone is not enough. It has to provide additional benefits to the entire family to make up for lost wages.
2) Non-profits like ASHA, etc can help here and fill in the role of govt for the time-being for a few kids and lobby govt on the real problem.