DELHI - I SAW TODAY

What do you think first thing when you get up in the morning? I woke up this morning feeling grouchy, thanks to the mosquitoes who feasted on my blood last night. Monday morning started great - me complaining about mosquitoes, kids about the breakfast... and to top it all a 14 year old school going kid drove his car into my neighbour's car. All this before 07:30 am. It seems the boy was going to catch his school bus in his father's car... no apologies, no regrets, just a smirk on his face. I mumbled some unintelligent words to my neighbour and drove off.

It was only on reaching the famous ITO intersection (people from Delhi know it) that I saw something that set me thinking. Everyday a 13 - 14 year old girl carrying a nearly 1 year old kid braves the heat, dust and traffic to ask for alms. Today I asked her name... she replied Rukhsana. Her name means beautiful. She lives on the footpath somewhere in Noida and catches a bus to reach the intersection. Earlier she lived in a slum which was demolished. She smiled as I asked her all this, maybe no one had talked to her like this in a while. The signal turned green and I drove on. I realised that in the last one month I had seen nearly 1000 such children without noticing them. I had talked to them, given them advises, prescribed medicines to them, yet I had not noticed them. 

 (The hill is made of garbage and welcomes all who come to Delhi from Haryana)

 

I had conducted some medical examination camps at the beheast of the hospital and some NGOs in the slums of Delhi. A part of Delhi only seen in movies winning Oscars, at other times we go past them in our daily lives without acknowledging their existence till the stench becomes too much or the news brings them to our homes for some reason. 

 (In the beginning of civilisation, man lived with animals and was one of them)

There is a girl who goes picking up garbage. She lives in Delhi, the capital of the largest democracy, the city of kings and emperors, famous for dynasties from the Pandavas to the Gandhis, Indraprastha to Lutyen's Delhi... unfortunately she knows nothing about all this. She lives with her family of 7 in a shack built in one of the settlement colonies in the outskirts of Delhi. She came to us with a weeping wound on her foot. Her mother had kindly put lime on the small boil which had caused a severe burn and worsened her foot. She smiled as she limped towards me to show the wound. I asked her where she studied, she replied with a negative. She like many from the colony go picking up garbage and then sort it. Each child earning around 100 INR. I think about the kid who drove the car in the morning. He spends more daily on his chocolates, icecreams, burgers and internet games. Both live in Delhi...

 (Children in their playground cum work place)

And now I think, what have I done to help? What about the others who see these kids as filthy creatures infesting their beautiful city, their colonies breeding mosquitoes and criminals... Do we know how they live, what they go through, how they survive? Delhi is synonymous with people with a heart, Dilli dil waalon ki, do we really have it? 

Driving past a hoarding of the latest movie Chalo Dilli, I am reminded of a couplet from Zauq- 

"In dinon garche dakkan mein hai badi qadr-e-sukhan,

Kaun jaaye 'Zauq' par dilli ki galiyaan chhod kar."

(These days there is increased recognition of literature in Deccan

But who, Zauq would leave the lanes of Delhi.)

Psalms 82:3,4 read like this "Give ear to the cause of the poor and the children without fathers; let those who are troubled and in need have their rights. Be the saviour of the poor and those who have nothing: take them out of the hand of the evil-doers."

Now when I think about all this, I am thankful to God for his mercies. I would like to do something and urge those who read to just think about all this once. Write to me on this blog what your thoughts are or how you would like to help.