Sunday, March 29, 2009

Hope Surgery




















This is my take on the sickest of social menace that is Child Labor. For so many times we have seen a small child as a sweeper in the train compartment floors,as a waiter in the restaurants,as domestic servants,as labor in the factories,as shoe polishers,as newspaper sellers and many more. Sometimes its so easy for us to sit inside our air-conditioned room , switch on the TV and say "this nation is going nowhere" while just behind us theres a small child cleaning our floors. Coming to the statistics part well CACL estimated that there are between 70 and 80 million child laborers in India alone. Poverty is the root cause of child labor but then my question is what is the root cause of poverty? There are many answers to it but from what I gather after all the intellectual debates fail and where all our sins intersect is our own surmounting ignorance and cold heart that renders such menace. I have seen people shouting at waiters over little amount of extra salt found in their food while just outside that restaurant, hungry kids eat the leftovers with the dogs. UNICEF cant do anything till we look inside ourselves and picture us in their place. May be then theres a bleak possibility that someday things will change.




Born under the cursed hands of time
I stand again as the chimney sweeps
My dreams were never really mine
Polishing shoes,I don't have time to weep

Born under a bloodstained manifesto
I'm exploited in the name of industrialization
I feed on your leftovers in the gutter below
I'm the snapshot of human rights violation

Born under a typical miscarriage
I'm growing up by stocking hate inside
My agony is BBC's bestselling footage
I'm the best source for photojournalists worldwide

Born under a stinking drainage
I can be seen as the domestic servant
My wage is lower than the price of a cabbage
My self-esteem quietly sleeps on the pavement

Born under a misplaced metaphor
I'm the youngest labor of the coal mines
Repetitive jobs and fatal conditions
I understand life better than the school rhymes

Born under a hurricane of adversity
I sell newspapers,matches and the flowers
My day starts and conclude at the streets
Sometimes I'm picked by the police and beaten for hours

Born under a stone-crushing memory
I live on cheap goods and society's deprivation
I'll die with nothing really to be sorry
As I'm the degree of your civilization


The worst thief is he who steals the playtime of children - Bill Haywood


13 comments:

nan said...

My agony is BBC's bestselling footage
I'm the snapshot of human rights violation

Yet another exceptional heart wrenching depiction in so your style

I'm the best source for photojournalists worldwide

Painful !

My wage is lower than the price of a cabbage

Man O man am falling short of words!

As I'm the degree of your civilization

Sums it all

And yet again that exceptional quote!!

My take ;)

http://coimbatorenostalgia.blogspot.com/2008/06/frenzied-fantasy.html

Ashrita said...

Once again, I am speechless! People who employ children should be given corporal punishment or something! Every line, every word, is so true, it takes you back to the Convex mirror and Concave mirror, and makes you wonder, yet again!

nan said...

And a brand new header :D :D

Ragpicker said...

@nan : thanks for the feedback once again :) And I did read your work. Its equally amazing Sorry I forgot completely about the feedback and went ahead as I said earlier , I'm a little off track today !!!! Btw I spent the whole afternoon making that banner :P

@ash : You are right people who employ children should be brought under stringent laws. but sadly most of these incidents go unnoticed.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this issue.

Anonymous said...

My agony is BBC's bestselling footage
I'm the best source for photojournalists worldwide

you have a way to touch people's hearts !! not just touch but awake them to reality !! *i bow to thee*


ps: loved the new header !!

Sumit said...

Beautifully written, Ragpicker! The sad part is that while we have a law to supposedly protect children against being made to labour away, it is seldom implemented.

lizzie said...

your words...they give me goose bumps! you are a genius man! A real writer!! and I love the new header!

lizzie said...

Repetitive jobs and fatal conditions
I understand life better than the school rhymes...the best!

Arnav said...

Your words have hit me like a bullet ..
its pure destiny we were not given a choice as to which family to born to..

Its sad , miserable, but fact ..

Kudos to you ... amazingly well written :)

lizzie said...

I really want to know what made you such a creative man...even if we are having inborn still very few people develop this insight for life and its secrets

Ragpicker said...

@prats: I'm glad to get that feedback from you. It means a lot :). The reality is I dont have much to do all day long so just sit and wonder about the cold present we have in this world. Glad you like the banner :)
Thanks again!!!

@sauron: Hey sauron I didnt see for sometime here. how you have been brother ??? You are correct with the fact that we have laws but all in papers. Practical implications have a different story all together which is the fucked up part.
Thanks for sharing your views and your feedback. And are you from Jamshedpur btw ??

@arnav: Thanks for your kind feedback. You have caught the right string on this issue. The birth factor. Its the worst curse a human can have. We have no control over our choice of birth.

@lunatic: Thanks for your heartfelt feedback. By the way I'm nowhere close to genius or creative. Leave that to DaVinci and Oscar Wilde :). I'm just another face in the lost crowd who collects rags from several aspects of life that people generally overlook and sometimes consider irrelevant and insignificant.

Glad you liked the banner ! :)

vinny said...

nan & others have said everything that i have to...
n u say u r not a genius!
i really am beginning to wonder who u r??? r u a 'real' person with a name and a passport?? :):)

i simply cant forget the super duper last line - "As I'm the degree of your civilization"

WOW WOW WOW
ur blog is certified super quality scrap...u simply never cease to amaze me, do u??

Ragpicker said...

well vinnie , to be 100% honest I seriously consider myself to be below average intelligence :-) Genius is a way too greater word for a "ghost" like me.

And yes I'm not a real person. Just a
program trapped inside this Internet traveling between networks like a "ghost" collecting terabytes of data :P Theoretically I dnt exist :)

I'm amazed that how come you are amazed everytime you visit my blog :P

Bye & Tkc
RAG.