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| The girl looking after her little brother |
It was during my visit to NGMA and other art galleries in that vicinity that I noticed this girl, barely ten, playing with a toddler. She seemed possessive about the treasure she had chanced upon; a brand new, good quality paper bag that could be used to hide her valuables. Between the footpath grill and trunk of a tree, a temporary cradle was made with a sari and her baby brother was asleep amidst all the chaos around. Members of her family were lazing around a few meters away; smoking and playing cards, completely unaware and least bothered about the preying glances this beautiful girl was receiving from the passersby.
A vehicle passed blowing very loud horn that disturbed her little brother's sleep and made him cry but before this girl had time to realize it, a stick was hurled in her direction followed by choicest of abuse. A sinewy looking father figure from the group playing cards barked at her and the girl flinched rushing to the brother. The verbal abuse continued to grow till the baby brother was quiet. Within seconds that innocent girl transformed into a woman with great responsibility on her shoulder. Her smile vanished, her face saddened with the dreadful possibilities of what lay ahead for her.
Every time I happen to witness such incidents my heart skips a beat. As a photographer, there is always a line that I don't wish to cross lest I intrude life of people and that would be unethical. I wanted to click this girl's photograph while she was playing with the toddler, lost in her beautiful little world in backdrop of hustle and bustle on the road. While I waited patiently for the right moment to click, I was left with nothing but a disconsolate picture, wrapped in threadbare of contrived hope. The picture need not necessarily capture and explore depths of her story pregnant within because there comes a point when moral dilemma makes me question myself if I am devouring others' suffering. There is an invisible line which as a photographer, I would never like to cross.
There are millions of girls like her on the roads in India. What is the big deal about this little girl? Well, it was yesterday, on Mother's day that I spotted this girl. Since morning, I had read some amazing tributes to Mother on social networking sites. Here was a girl who herself was just a child but was forced to be a mother because of sheer destiny. There was very thin, amorphous line between her innocent self and her transformed grown up version that I had just witnessed. One question that kept haunting me was how long her innocence would stay intact.
Far too often, twang laden educated air engulfs our collective views about people like this girl and we tend to easily suspend their very existence! An 'educated" air with bloated ego that we often carry is devoid of basic understanding and respect we could accord to fellow human beings. People like this girl don't have luxury of lullabies, birthday parties or throwing tantrums. They are expected to quietly take the path of enduring fate and completely surrender to it. Their life is nothing but sardonic pastiche, a mute testimony to a vicious cauldron of urban destitution. Often, the city is too engrossed to listen to their silent screams of decay in humanity.
When I left, I had no words to pay tribute to this little mother as all the touching tributes that I had read that morning seemed to pale after I saw this little angel!
