Shanta Tai...

After reading my blog and posts about Dhaanu many people reacted many of them they wanted to do something on their own,some offered financial help to some NGOs working in the area and rest just expressed their regreat over the sorry state of affairs prevailing in our country.I myself had mixed feelings about the issue, helplessness , anger, frustration etc. anyhow coulnt stop thinking about the issue.when I went to the chatrapati shivaji museum,churchgate I suddenly saw a lady who looked like a tribal selling artificial jewellery.I started a conversation with her first asking the price of the neckles ,then her name and soon we started chatting.I thought of sharing a cup of tea with her as she seemed really friendly and nice,soon we started chatting like old friends.

The things which told me caused me even more anxiety from within.shanta tai told me that se was from solapur kheda.she lived there till she had three kids.the famine and malnourishment forced her to leave her village.she along with her husband and three kids left the village and came to Mumbai in search of a decent work.But here also misery followed them.She told me that she lives with her husband and kids on the foothpath.her husband works as a laborer and she sells these jewellery ,for every Rs40 worth of jewellery she gets a margin of Rs3.some times they get to eat but mostly they are not able to manage much.she then showed me a sort of bag containing all the belonging of her whole family.what she said next moved my soul,she said “I feel me and my family would have been better off dead.”recently she says that children are getting kidnaopped from the people living on the streets.But nobody cares, they die or live hardly matters to anyone.

She told me that she has to pay Rs 1200 to the police every month in order to sell her jewelleries from the footpath.”if we would have got jobs in our own village we would not have come here”she added.

But what I feel is the worst thing in this whole situation is that we as citizens choose to be indifferent towards the situation.This was not the first time that I had visited the place but still never noticed anything wrong there till now.All this make me more angry with ourselves and not the politicians as somebody rightly told me once”Bad things do not happen because of violence by bad people,but it is cause by the silence of good people” I know if people read it some will feel bad about the situation and some of them will wish to contribute to the cause but most of them will forget after a minute or two.I don’t blame them they have bigger problems in their personal lives such as choosing the right brand for their new LCD or deciding their kid’s tennis coach.Thats us...