This sad and thoughtful incident happened on an evening when I stopped to get some grocery items inside a market in a busy center of Islamabad, on my way to home after office. There was a crowd in front of sweets shop. The people were scolding the man on the shop. When I got near, I found out that a 7 years old child was crying continously. He tried to touch a samosa in the tray when the sweet maker threw hot oil on him to stop and punish him at the same time. The kid had miserable condition with torn clothes and 4 even younger siblings around him. I was so outraged that I tried to call the police after knowing the whole story. Meanwhile, the shopkeeper was defending himself that he had no other option other than this to stop the child. Meanwhile, people who were sympathising with the child went away. I got near to the child and asked him whether he needed any medical attention. In my broken pashto, I tried to console him. Luckily, he wasn’t burnt and saved, thanks to his torn qameez, which was covering that part of his arm where the hot oil fell. On inquiring where he lived and what their father does to earn the livings, I came to know that they reside in nearby Jhugis and their father is a conductor in a local van. I told them to leave and go home and not to do such act again.
“Everyone is their sympathiser”, I heard a voice before I could finish with the kids. When I turned back, I saw an aged lady carrying grocery items. “Everybody needs sympathisers, when this is done to them.” I replied pointing towards the crying child. “No, they don’t, these are such an ugly breed that they have made whole Pakistan dirty.” Yes, these were her words. I was shocked. I looked again at the lady, she was in good condition, looked well off and was heading towards her parked car. “Aunty, these kids need to go to school and should be taught manners instead of spilling hot oil and hatred on.” “They won’t, go to their parents and tell them to send their kids to school, they won’t listen to you. If their mothers are told not to reproduce more kids, they shout at you and abuse you.” The lady backed her statement with these arguments. “So all of them should be burnt into that pan of boiled oil, No?”I retaliated. “You don’t know them, I have been into this business for long time.” I couldn’t speak anything except offering her a good look with a sarcastic admiration of her experience.
As she left, the boy had stopped crying. I asked him whether he goes to school. I was shocked when he told me that he is a student of class two. To make certain, I asked him to say the english alphabets. He uttered them very fluently. I could not do anything except to warn the shopkeeper and buy all of the children few candies.
Since then, I have been thinking whether it is the fault of those children that they tried to steal a tempting food on a roadside, which a person like that lady or I wont even like to buy. Or the shopkeeper, who was ignorant and insensitive. Or perhaps, that lady whose indifference and discriminatory attitude was already there. May be, she had her own experiences to justify her differences. But, improving the attitude of that lady, or the shopkeeper or even myself, who could only ward off all his responsibilities to those children by offering some candies, could not offer any good to present and future state of those children. Their agony stands there and then, for the time unknown. I find myself, the lady and the shopkeeper in the same boat with more or less same levels of indifferent attitudes.
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