Thinking of Children

Everyday the sun rises. Some children in my country wake up and go to school
1. some go to private boarding school and their parents get the money back from their employers
2. some go to a government school where hopefully teachers are there to tell them something

Those who don't:

1. have to take care of their younger siblings while their parents go to work hoping someday to be able to send their children to school OR
2. are lying in their death bed waiting for an Armyman or a Maoist health worker, or just anyone with some knowledge of health before this dehydrated, undernourished body is left by the soul OR
3. hope mother will cook some food so they can put something in their tummy before they go to work with their parents, sometimes in fields that are a couple of hours of barefooted walk though raw mountains, sometimes at the bend on a busy uphill street where buses and trucks generously let loose of their exhausts making the stones they have beaten appear black OR
4. are alone at home, knowing not what to do, wiating for a couple of their friends to come to them ,hopefully one of them with a ball made of old socks or a dandi-biyo set. Lord life is no fun sitting alone at home having nothing to do OR
5. are trying to put some of the few sukas and mohars into their pocket with the remaining left hand (how many of these would I need to buy a rasbari?), lest their master comes and picks up all the money and leaves them with the empty plate to beg for the midday meal and threaten to cut the tongue off too if the complaining continued OR
6. are falling asleep waiting at some of the public steps near Hanumandhoka, flies savouring on the cuts and bruises that they have collected through their day's work in the city OR
7. are busy selling ground nuts at a bus stop or newspapers inside a bus OR
8. are working at a huge construction site waiting for the next karahi of sand and cement, or bending the rods or filtering the sand, hoping some day they will be able to build a house for themselves OR
9. are playing horses with a similarly aged son in the master household (have to be serious, a bad horse gets a beating- of course) while the masters are at work and their son doesn't go to school because of an morning-only stomachache OR
10. are walking from the back of a tyampoo to the front, crying, telling the driver that the two men running there in that direction, just beat him up and looted all the money that had been collected as fares OR
11. are exploring their body (what's that hole you got and what's this stick i got?) in a dark corner in a carpet factory they work and live in that has been running almost idle OR
12. are wondering at the shiny, slippery walls with colorful flowers as they take a shower with fine foam (not eye-burning dallo sabun this time) in a hotel room where a very kind lady lives of whom friends said she gave a shower, then massaged you with oil, you massaged her too, fed you with good food and even gave you some money at the end of it. And yes, she even took pictures of yours alone and together with her OR
13. are sitting with seniors rolling gaanja on a leaf and learning the skills of becoming a fighter for the new Nepal OR
14. are searching for plastic inside rotten overspilled waste containers, plastic to sell and make some money with OR
15....

...and I stand here in front of my warderobe wondering what dress I should be wearing today. As I think of chidlren I can't help being proud of my sense of social responsibility (In fact I have given a village boy work, he lives with us and we send him to school too. We have even given him a separate space. He has his own room under the stairs and unlike most other miserly, nasty people, we have even put a glass window on the outer wall so he can have some daylight). He is not good at cooking, he is not good at washing clothes clean, he is very bad at cleaning the toilet (leaves stains) and the bathroom (slips and falls once in a while- last time we even paid the costs of the fracture of his arm he caused by falling), he is not good at brushing our shoes, he is not good at ironing our clothes (my wife sometimes has to redo some of hers herself), and still we are keeping him because we want to contribute something to help children in need in our country. He doesn't seem to acknowledge our sense of social responsibility but we are giving him a chance. Hopefully he will learn and not waste this golden opportunity he has been given by our generosity.

Are you a proud person with a sense of social responsibility like mine? Is our minister of child welfare a proud person, like me, helping children in need?
Let's hope not...

raktim.nepali@gmail.com