Peter Chachei
‘It was January 29, around 11 am, I think, when I reached the place. They (those who were undergoing substitution therapy) had already gathered for another day of counseling. The room was crowded and the floors were all covered with white powder employed for making the carom board more slippery. Observing the overall atmosphere, I felt I was in a land which did not belong to this world.
I was invited to enter and as I stepped inside the Drop-in-Centre (DIC) run by a local NGO. I noticed that a group of middle-aged men were busy with a game of carom while some were having their regular dose of medicines, their feet tapping the floor.
Stalls serving mouth watering delicacies and drinks were all around. There was a crowd before every nearby-shop. Everyone was talking, laughing and giggling. Behind them was a little boy seated in front of a television, watching it without even bothering to blink his eyes once on the other side of the enclosure along with some grown-ups.
While everyone was busy in the hustle-bustle of the day, my eyes fell upon the particular boy (4 1/2 years) who was present there spending time in front of the television. The place was alive with laughter and merrymaking, but my thoughts numbed my senses somehow. The magic of the day, all the things I enjoyed with, had swept so far away into another world that we had all forgotten those struggles the little boy is undergoing, with nothing but rags on.
All he had on were tattered shirts and trousers hardly in better condition. His innocent face looked pleadingly at everyone to buy him something to play with or to fill his hungry belly. But the world seemed to have turned a deaf ear to his wants.
Deaf not just because of the vehicles rushing to and fro, blaring so loud, but because of the indifference among the people of the society. The boy looked imploringly at everybody, almost on the verge of begging. Somewhere in the eyes glinted a hope too — of delivery from hunger and the pain. I thought it did.
I quietly walked up to him and asked some few questions and the first notable word that came out from the toddler mouth was the ‘wish of having something to eat’. I looked at him closer. His face was hard, there was the smile and he didn’t seem to be bothered about softening his looks just to hide the pain he was going through. And I was not going to blame him for it. For, I understood what had hardened him. I think I did. I just stood rooted and when he looked surprised, I said ‘Do you wish to have something?’ This time he smiled slightly and replied, “I want to have some biscuits”. I wanted to buy him whatever he wanted, but I didn’t have so much money. My thoughts just couldn’t keep track with the crowd or the constant shouts from the other side of the enclosure…….
A grand and glamourous show was on all around, in the middle of which no one cared about these little face with eyes almost sunken, lips chapped and teeth almost ready for a check-up.
Everyone was too busy, working to earn their dinner for the night, to notice the little boy.
But what will the little boy eat? It didn’t seem to strike anyone there that even his father was undergoing substitution therapy under the guidance of some local NGO.
I stood there for sometime and wondered where exactly are we (the society) heading to? We talk of developmental activities, community-based care programmes and projects for the poor, but the truth is, there are many faces like that particular boy that we seem to be leaving behind. Forgotten.
