Privileged

"Didi, thank you!"

Nothing, I repeat, nothing could have been sweeter than those two words, which lingered around me a lot longer than usual. 

We are privileged individuals. We come from good families, where we've never been deprived of food, shelter and the basic necessities. We've never had to roam the streets in the mere want of a loaf of bread. We haven't felt the scorching sun on our backs, begging our way through the crowd of many, hoping to receive the bare minimum for the day. Our survival has never depended on the people around us, on the food they share and the money they spend on us. We are privileged human beings. We'll never, not even in our craziest imaginations, understand their plight.

And so, when this little kid came up to me to ask for water, I was stunned. 

The shock left me wondering for a while. I couldn't come to terms with the fact that a little boy, barely 4-5 years of age, was begging for water. He was thirsty, I could see it.

We've all read the story of a crow who had to put pebbles in the pot to bring the water upto the brim. But this child didn't have the pot. He did have stones, but what good were they without the presence of the former? Why were stories not written on such kids, instead? 

Why do we imagine birds and animals and bacteria in our stories and not focus on the issues that matter? Why do we never tell our children to read about such kids, get to the crux of their plight and understand how in the worst of situations, they might have been one amongst them? 

Where ignorance is bliss is the new phrase of the era, I must least expect people to be considerate. And what for will they be? To drop a few coins in the hands of the beggar? 

"Upar se pi lunga. Muh nahi lagaaunga", he said.

I looked at him, square in the eye. His eyes spoke volumes about how he had been roaming near the metro station since long, not having come across any customer who'd pay him much. I gave him the water bottle, without another water. 

As he opened the cap and handled the bottle with both his hands, raw, tiny, I saw him quench his thirst, drop by drop. I almost smiled. I wanted to hug the little kid and take him home. But what good would that do? How many more such kids will I adopt? And is adopting the real cure of the root cause?

I guess not. To be honest, I don't know if a cure does exist. This is how we've been brought up, differentiating between the rich and the poor, even before we knew what the words really meant. Our books had images of beggars but it never spoke of their plight. We read about them, emotionlessly, complaining about the mosquito bites, meanwhile.

How insensitive can we get? 

Because I didn't have an answer like the many others around me and I'm privileged like you, the one reading this, I couldn't give him a reply. I couldn't say 'you're welcome'. That was too less a word for something I actually felt. 

It didn't take long for the guilt to take charge of my senses. And before long, I uttered, 'Welcome'. Almost inaudible, for the mere satisfaction of having replied. 

Privileged. Yes, that's what I was, like everybody else.