The Amazing Boy in the Beach

Beach holds a very special place in my heart as I grew up near seashore throughout my life. From walking barefoot in the wet sand to eating hot corns- it always gives you a new experience every time you visit it. After joining my PhD, the first reunion with my PG friends was decided to be held at marina beach. I met this amazing boy in the beach, who made me look at the beach from a completely different shoe. This little boy aged around 5 or may be less than that came to us selling “SUNDAL”.

He kept persuading us to buy it even after we refused. I gave him Rs.10 and told him to keep it, but the boy strictly refused and told us to buy some. After finding out his name and that he was going to school, I asked him for how much would he sell it. He said for Rs. 5 and Rs. 10. I gave him Rs.10 and told him to give us sundal for Rs.5 and keep the rest for his school. Again the boy refused and gave us sundal for Rs. 10; also he refused us to take his picture. Well this made me kind off rethink a lot of things. Despite a lot of memories from beach from sand castle to horse ride, this is the first one that crosses my mind every time I visit a beach. And this incident has made me to think a lot about the nation’s progress and our role in it.

First no one is born evil, only their personal situation and surrounding environment changes them. It is because of people like us, corruption is seeded into these young minds, which grows with time. I should have stopped at the first attempt to offer him money. I should have valued over his self-respect over pity. At this age rather than begging he opted to work hard and support himself or may be his family.  The only silver lining I could point to at this situation was, at this very young age he was able to manage such a lot of money. Rethinking this made me to realize that this is something important that we all should follow in our home. Teach our kids about management; let it be time or money.

The second point I wondered was- Isn’t child labor bad? When we see a child working or begging, we pay him extra. Don’t you think that by doing so we are encouraging child labor? Our pity might be one of the reasons that child labor/ begging ratio has increased. Looking into our role as citizen, if you report it to the police the kid’s parents will be arrested or he might face some other greater problems. Should we complain or should we help him silently? There may be special organizations that might help these kids and place them in safe houses but how do you trust them. Movies are source of entertainments and at the same time they do project real life factors too. Will these kids be safe or are we voluntarily pushing them into hell? What should we do..what should I do…whom should I trust..I don’t know 🙁