Have you seen those angels?

The last time I met Chhotu, he was a boy with beautiful smile, had a glint in his eyes and loads of enthusiasm despite the brutality of the circumstances he lived in. I met him about a fortnight back, after months and was disturbed to notice the drastic change in him. He looked sullen, the smile was gone and his face looked too mature for his age. I was wondering what must have happened in all these months in the world of this boy, barely nine! When I asked him about it, he told me that one of his friends had gone missing and that he feared that the friend might have fallen into wrong hands.

Before I share his story further, let me introduce you to Chhotu. He is one of the children you would find roaming at C.S.T station at Bombay. Everyday, hundreds of  children come to this city from every part of the country and struggle for survival on the streets, railway stations and other public places. Generally, we look at them with disdain, assume that they are criminals and ignore their existence completely. Chhotu and his friends clean railway compartments of the local trains and sometimes receive money from some kind passengers. Most of these children have escaped their homes to avoid abusive parents or have been left alone to fend for themselves by their families.

I distinctly remember meeting Chhotu and his friends first time, during one of my rare travels by local train. They were in my compartment, giggling, sharing jokes about the absurdities of their life and laughed at me in unison when I stopped them from standing too close to the gate of the train. However, when I insisted, they listened to me and that worked wonderfully, as ice breaker. I probed about their life and soon we all got talking. After we reached C.S.T station, I offered to buy them food and clothes. Chhotu immediately asked me if I could arrange for medical help instead, for one of his friends who happened to be ill and was absent that day. Once, everything they needed was taken care of, I spent some time talking to them. And in those moments of sharing I learnt about their pain, insecurities, loneliness, confusion regarding their identities and their constant struggle to cope up with displacement and dissonance that was part of their everyday life.

When I asked Chhotu, if any action was taken to search his friend, he started crying inconsolably. No words were enough to heal the wound of Chhotu's loss. Words like, "don't worry, everything will be alright" would have been blatant betrayal as we both knew that once a child went missing from such place, he never returned. I offered him his favorite soup and a food packet and tried to talk about life in general. He managed a smile, a futile attempt at concealing all his suffering. I stayed with him for sometime and then had to leave with heavy heart, as I was already delayed for my meeting.

Its hardly few days since I met Chhotu but his sad, empty eyes haunt me. I dread to think about many more Chhotus who are all around us but succumb to anti social elements and vanish in oblivion for the sake of survival. I am aware of the political, social, economical and cultural factors responsible for criminal, inhuman condition of millions of people including children. What bothers me most is the way we have become comfortably NUMB about this issue!!! Do we really value human life ? When I come across little angels like Chhotu everyday, I very much doubt it.