Nehemiah Rong
Scavenging over garbage heaps, many children pick rags in cities like Kolkata etc. while many of their counterparts enjoy themselves flying kites on the road and computer in the games at home. Over the mix up lifestyle, the popular expression is to murmur over the unanswerable factors and circumstances that encircle lives.
The urbanization and population explosion poses threat to the human kind and that don’t spare the India with a population crossing 1.2 billion. Many poor people make their dwelling places in railway stations, roadsides and slam areas etc. These people are exposed to many challenges like hunger, unhygienic environment and forced child labour, flesh trade, unemployment and street begging et al amongst others. In the abundance of the urban facilities these people are dying everyday out of hunger, heat, cold and drought and flood.
Life in city becomes easier and faster. Just dial your cell and get connected to a person and get the job done. Take a drive and you are there in the place you want to be in no time. The vehicles increases, the emission of smoke also increases creating the air unhealthier to breathe in. The business transaction becomes quicker, the ATM, serves you anytime you want to withdraw the money (24x7).
In Delhi, people cannot be trusted because it already sets its record straight in championing of rape cases and abuses meted to the women folks and tribal people from the North East India. The Metro in Delhi gives one a better, cheaper, safer and quicker service for the common commuters to travel forth and back within the city. Kolkatta is not spared in becoming a crowded and polluted city in India. Better is Hyderabad and Bangalore in terms of cleanliness. Mumbai is impressive and elegant, but it bears mar of killing a Naga girl last year and raping another girl this year by some miscreants, if not Mumbai is still beautiful.
Getting closer back at home may be in Nagaland or Manipur, Kids in remote villages play marble game besides the bamboo-made-mat while exposing the paddy on sun with cluttered dresses. Unlike the city counterpart, these little Johny(ies) are not exposed to the TVs, Radios, Telephone and Computers etc.
In village community holiday day, is the best time to chill out in the jungle with catapult and mud-made-sling-shot. As the birds chirp around, children tread around under the bushes and trees to shoot the birds to be roasted with red chilly for ‘Chutney’.
Autumn time is one of the best times to chill out in green fields. As the season offers to the mankind a time to reap and eat lots of vegetables and fruits like, maize, apricot, cucumber etc. Children go in groups to the fields to collect fruits for consuming purpose and also for sale. It is interesting to note that many children would go to jungle collecting swarm and bees and make a good sale out of them inorder to buy clothes for themselves. These children with their earned money sometimes would buy candles and kerosene to lit at night where there was no electricity. Although, there are elder guys who with such earned money would squander in gambling and alcoholism.
City life is an envy and immediate target of many young people living in North East if not all. Yes! The city live offers more opportunities in terms of education, job and better living standard. The city life polishes one to be in the mainstream of competitive world in terms of communication skills and personality development. The city life offers more luxuries with pubs, discotheques, bars, cafés, and cinema halls. It also gives a better platform to exhibit one’s talent if not creativity in terms of getting job.
In search of jobs many youngsters from the northeast India leave their homes with hope of better employment opportunities and avenues. More often if not all times, these youngsters are neglected and exploited by many employers in the metro cities in India. The dilemma is written large on their faces when they were exploited, they want to leave the place/job at the moment but thinking of the situation back at home again, they don’t want to be at home taking up manual jobs. As stated earlier the life in city is easier, faster, and definitely it gives more luxuries than the rural live, so like many for wants of modern style of living prefer to stay back and continue to suffer the exploitation and humiliation that they often received from their employers and other co-workers. The nature, pressure, competition of work usually forces, these youngsters to take liquor, cigarettes and in extreme cases taking drugs etc. What can be seen while interacting with some of these youngsters working and living outside their homes, oftentimes expressed that they missed their homes, relatives, friends and their loving parents. But when asked why they don’t come back home and be with them, ‘what I will do if I come home’ is the immediate reply. Being homesick yet, unwilling to live the hard lives at home forces these youngsters to work outside their home and continue to live a life of exploitation and humiliation.
Taking a closer look for employment opportunities and avenues back in their own states, the government job is what everyone seeks for but majority do not get it. Some are not qualified for that, many are well qualified in academic excellence but failed in political and money prowess. The other option is self-employment, when comes to self-employment the prospect and scope is unlimited yet it suffers a major drawback due to lack of capital investment. Also when capital investment is available one factor that hinders one to go ahead is the challenge to accept the terms ‘dignity of labour’. ‘No job is higher or lower. All jobs are equally important and essential.’ The youngsters must learn that there is tremendous power in these words. It is not a big wonder to find people from Bihar and UP sitting in pathways and roadways in our towns and villages under the bare shelter of umbrellas mending and polishing shoes for the local people which if the local people could only realize the tag ‘dignity of labour’ could make themselves a good living like those Biharis do. Also the same applies with the shops and other business, where the Marwaris thrives everywhere they go and the local people have to be jobless and go to Mumbai/Delhi in search of some sales job in showrooms etc. The irony that can be noted is that instead of making a comfortable secure life at one’s native place, one goes to far away living an insecure and exploited life in search of better job opportunity and many ignorant youngsters lost their dignity and chastity by the abuse from the mainlanders in form of cheats, physical and sexual abuse.
Those educated youths, with their knowledge can create their land a better place by taking the ignorant farmers ahead in every field though definitely it involves its own risks and challenges. It is a known fact that the main drawback of the northeast people especially in the rural tribal hilly areas is the lack of connectivity. The absence of the all weather road to every nook and cranny of the state or district is the main issue that hinders the development in all aspects. The lack of proper health care, primary education facility, the proper dinking water supply and sanitation, power supply, all these put together push the remote villages far behind from the rest of the country and the world.
Jostling in the jumble fumble mumble crowded city and riding in the muddy-dusty-bumpy-shaky country road, the question of poverty, unemployment, improper health care, population growth, connectivity problems confront the people. Little Kiran cry for clean water in the city and little Johnny lament for poor road condition in the hill. Old Laxmi pray for a slice of bread to feed her empty belly and the Old granny walk on miles to get a tin of paddy. While little Raju fly kite all his way, little Romeo picking up his catapult run to the jungle all the way. The life continues, with these people mumble over the jumble life that they have to struggle through down the ages and must be tussling with a thought ‘when will a glimmer of hope come to our life’?
