Papa and I

on Monday 16 July 2007

I put my head down and tried to sleep on papa’s shoulder. I closed my eyes to sleep, but the bad thing in my stomach hurt me again. I wanted to cry out, but didn’t want to upset papa. He has been very upset for the past seven days because of me. The bad things worried him too. I opened my eyes and looked out of the window of the train. The trees seemed to run past the train at great speed. I thought this was very funny, and laughed out loud. But I had to stop because the bad things were hurting me again. Papa looked at me and asked me what happened.

“Look at the trees papa. They are running after each other in a straight line. Cricket masterji at school would be impressed with their speed!” , I said and smiled up at him.

“The trees are not moving beta, but the train is, so it looks like the trees are running”, Papa replied, looking down at me and his eyes filled with tears. I suddenly felt very stupid.

“sorry papa. I am stupid. I should listen more to masterji at school. I will do that from tomorrow. Please don’t cry..”

“No beta. You are a darling and not stupid at all. I promise I wont cry anymore. Okay? ", papa said and scooped me into his arms.

That’s where I felt safest, in papa’s arms. In his arms the bad things didn’t hurt me that much. Papa was strong, he would scare them away! I smiled to myself as a picture of the them running away and papa giving chase with his stick came into my head.

Papa and I had gone to the big-city-with-all-the-water a week ago. Nattu and Bhola also wanted to come along, but papa took only me with him. He told them that the bad things in my stomach needed to be chased away by doctor saab , who lived in the city. I was very excited to go to the city. But I wanted ma also to come along. But Nattu, Bhola, Krishna and Kali needed some who would take care of them. So ma had to stay back

We met doctor saab, but he said he could not chase the bad things away and papa had been very upset since then. I saw him crying last night, in chacha’s house . I thought I had done something very bad. Papa didn’t even listen to my new story about the King and his horses.

“papa.. when will we reach home?” , I asked

“in a while beta. We will arrive at our station in 5 minutes then we can walk back home from there.”

Good. Maybe Kali will hear my story. She loves my stories. With this comforting thought I closed my eyes. I had begun to feel drowsy….


….. I was feeling very cold and this woke me up. I opened my eyes to see where we were. I looked around and realized that we were near the bridge over the river in our village. I was very excited to be home. But we weren’t moving. Papa was holding me and crying again.this put bad thoughts in my head.

“You said you wont cry… you promised”; I said.

Papa didn’t reply but he broke down further. He was weeping now. He put me on the edge of the bridge and looked at me. He had a very sad look in his eyes. Papa had the same look when Gowri, our cow, died. I was very scared now. Ma had asked me not to go too close to the edge of the bride.

papa….”

“I am sorry. I cant see you in pain..It kills me …but I can’t help you either…we are too poor to live….”


I just kept yelling “papa bachao!, papa bachao!” for as long as I could….




This is the story of Sarita , a little girl from Janpur. Fortunately, she was saved by the local fishermen and restored to her family. This news was pickedup by NDTV and a lot of people have come forward offering monetary and medical help. But what of all those other little girls whose news is not picked up by anybody, they have no other choice but to drown, if not in lakes then in their own misery. I believe that every problem has a solution. what is the solution to this?

28.6%(about 305 million people) of all Indians are below the national poverty line. Poverty is helplessnes. No amount of charity can ever help them. Because money alone cannot reduce their helplessness.But services can.Every hospital should have mandatory pro bono time for their doctors and all schools should take in students pro bono. Every engineer, doctor, lawyer and banker has the responsibility of providing their services pro bono. This is the responsibility of a nation. Not just a few NGOs.

This is not about the right to education or information. This is about the Right to Live. And every living thing has a claim to it.This is the story of 300 million people.This is not the story of Sarita alone.



Music Tag

on Sunday 8 July 2007

i got tagged by my good friend shilpa from school.This actually happened a long time ago and she warned me about getting indolent! but hey! am on a holiday and am highly disinclined to use my fingers to do anything as exerting as TYPE!

Anyways this is what you gotta do:

You got to enqueue all the songs in your system onto winamp.. Activate the toggle shuffle thing and start answering the questions on your life entrusting your fate in the hands of winamp player.

1. How does the world see me??
"Makes me wonder-marron5". now That makes me wonder!

2. What do my friends think about me?
"i wanna wake up where you are- goo goo dolls" of course, everyone wants to hang out with me. face it , i am fun!

3. What shud I do with my life?
"everybody's fool -evanescence" .....hmmm..tricky...should i become a stand up comedian, or may be a politician, everybody finds them ridiculous!

4. How will I be remembered?
"seven days- craig david" okay! so looks like my time in the limelight will last a whole week! cool!

5.Whats my signature dancing number?
"welcome to india- ludakrishna and vikram MC" damn!!

6. which song shall be played on my wedding?
"we will be burning- sean paul" .ouch!! as long as we are burning with the passion of love it's okay, i hope i dont have to keep a couple of fire trucks ready!

7. What song shall be played on my funeral?
"the Forgotten-joe satriani" . excuse me!! hello..it is my funeral, dont you think it's a bit too early to forget me?? i better change my will now. %^&##$@@!


8. the song for my friends.
" on the run- pink floyd" hmmm...interesting.

9. 4 my family
"i am mine- pearl jam" okay...if u say so!

10.Song 4 ppl I don’t like!!
anya - deep purple and joe satriani. okay...irrelevant. i have never even heard of this song!

11.Whatz in my head during lectures?
"gasolina- daddy yankee" . yup. totally! i dont understand the lyrics of the song ,as i dont understand anything the poor guy on the dias is on about!

12.Whatz my job gonna be like??

"Fade to black- dire straits" . how very dire! :(

13.Whtz the song 4 my future mom-in-law??
"circle-slipknot" so i am guessing she is going to be fat.

14. Finally, some thoughts on myself..
" so far away- staind" Ah.perfect.


That was fun. okay that was much better than watching a series of K serials on tv, which is mostly what i have been doing in the past week! curiously no Hindi or Telugu songs, I wonder why..Ah. I seem to have forgotten to enque them!

shall tag others now.

changing into my slothy, lazy self again..

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