I turned on BBC news, and arrived at switzerland's stolen child hoods. My eyes avert itself from the screen, as I try to focus on my cup of tea. I stir the cup of tea and it spills onto the table. Even as I push the swiss childrens' plight to my minds back screen, I tear up ... from the dredges of a past that I cannot out run or throw out, comes a name- 'selvam'... I cannot recall any image, just his distress..
I am at a place and time ,a child...yes I was just a child , walking , the coordination required for maneuvering doors still alien.Today I am crying silently as I sip the tasteless tea, for 'selvam'. I cannot remove the innate empathy of those days, nor the reality that because of that compassion I caused suffering....
Selvam was also a child, sent by his poor and hungry parents to this big house, all to labour away his right to a childhood...on hopes he will be fed, and some cash would flow into their burdened lives for his labours..
There are child labourers all over this world even as I write this.Nothing has changed much for the children, just new facades and new names for the exploitations of children. Some think it is justified to cheat another of their time, their rights trod over,- willfully negated in front of their own children..but to what end....
I still remember that day when the sun's slanting rays cast its orange glow , stretched lines on the wooden floor . In an upstairs room slanted shadow of a window grew long on the floor. I slid a peice of bread through the space at the bottom of the uneven door to Selvam's room.I cried with selvam, who was beaten that day. I could not think of my parents as bad or especially cruel then, yet I stuggle to forgive them of what cannot be forgotten, cannot be undone.... I can understand that they too were the products of their time.
Now even as their memories fade, at times I feel the urge to force them to remember, but they will not remember anything anymore, only the memory of that day breaks in me in sadness and shame, a sadness that envelops me in thick oppressive guilt...Yet, I cannot be held guilty, instead it should be my parents , and the society at large... they should embrace the weight of the shame, they should wear this cloak of guilt suffused sadness.
I wonder about Selvam....what became of him? Did he make it in the world okay.....Did his burdened days rob him of all that we call 'life value" for ever? I know that I will never have answers
Every child soldier, every child who labour, be it in the tobacco farms in the vastness of american south, be it in the brick kilns in India, or cocoa farms of Africa... every child is another Selvam...
There is also your child who lives with the heaviness of guilt... carrying the burden of stained lives. stained by the suffering of the selvams all over the world.
Changing shapes, or the color or the label will not remove the disparities , the injustices that divide us,...all of us those with or without will continue to struggle for the tainted childhoods... washing away the stains unto the end....in-escapably unto the end....
I am at a place and time ,a child...yes I was just a child , walking , the coordination required for maneuvering doors still alien.Today I am crying silently as I sip the tasteless tea, for 'selvam'. I cannot remove the innate empathy of those days, nor the reality that because of that compassion I caused suffering....
Selvam was also a child, sent by his poor and hungry parents to this big house, all to labour away his right to a childhood...on hopes he will be fed, and some cash would flow into their burdened lives for his labours..
There are child labourers all over this world even as I write this.Nothing has changed much for the children, just new facades and new names for the exploitations of children. Some think it is justified to cheat another of their time, their rights trod over,- willfully negated in front of their own children..but to what end....
I still remember that day when the sun's slanting rays cast its orange glow , stretched lines on the wooden floor . In an upstairs room slanted shadow of a window grew long on the floor. I slid a peice of bread through the space at the bottom of the uneven door to Selvam's room.I cried with selvam, who was beaten that day. I could not think of my parents as bad or especially cruel then, yet I stuggle to forgive them of what cannot be forgotten, cannot be undone.... I can understand that they too were the products of their time.
Now even as their memories fade, at times I feel the urge to force them to remember, but they will not remember anything anymore, only the memory of that day breaks in me in sadness and shame, a sadness that envelops me in thick oppressive guilt...Yet, I cannot be held guilty, instead it should be my parents , and the society at large... they should embrace the weight of the shame, they should wear this cloak of guilt suffused sadness.
I wonder about Selvam....what became of him? Did he make it in the world okay.....Did his burdened days rob him of all that we call 'life value" for ever? I know that I will never have answers
Every child soldier, every child who labour, be it in the tobacco farms in the vastness of american south, be it in the brick kilns in India, or cocoa farms of Africa... every child is another Selvam...
There is also your child who lives with the heaviness of guilt... carrying the burden of stained lives. stained by the suffering of the selvams all over the world.
Changing shapes, or the color or the label will not remove the disparities , the injustices that divide us,...all of us those with or without will continue to struggle for the tainted childhoods... washing away the stains unto the end....in-escapably unto the end....
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