Countless, but hardly count

By Fahad Ahmed Mohammed

My mind was still reeling from what had just happened when, all of sudden, the whole world became so bright that my eyes began to hurt. It took me a few minutes to realize where I was: as the softness at my back and under my head began to feel, as the feeble sounds began to make sense and as it all started to come in to my consciousness. Aah! My mum had just shaken me to wake me up before she pulled the curtains, and now stood right near my bed. I had promised her that I would go and get the grocery she needed for the function we were to have that night. It was a Saturday, the much sought after, after the hectic week at work. The mind had taken the toll of the workload and had let me into the deep world of dreams, to recover itself, leaving me sleeping a bit too longer.

Somehow I got up, freshened up, grabbed the grocery list on my table that was placed by mum, and headed for the store. As I made my way towards the destination, I listened to the tracks on my iPod - my usual thing: plug in the music and plug out the world; lost in the tunes of the rock, pop, hip-hop and whatever was running on the shuffle. After a 15 minute ride, thanks to the amazing traffic on the route, I reached the grocery store. This was not the supermarket type store. This was the common ‘Kirana’ store, but quite big; normally had all the stuff we needed and that too at discounted prices! I reached one of the shopkeepers and handed him the list. While he was going through it, I removed my ear-plugs to ‘reconnect’ to the place outside my iPod. He gave the list inside and asked another guy working inside to get all the listed items.

Meanwhile, I stood near the counter when, suddenly, I heard a loud thud, then screaming. I turned around to see what had happened. I saw a big can of oil lying on the pavement and the oil flowing out from it, and a man shouting on a kid. Apparently, the kid was carrying the can to the customer sitting in his car next to the pavement and had lost balance. “The kid carrying that 15 litre can of oil!!” This thought struck me and shook me out from my slumber! That shopkeeper raised his hand to hit him when, out of the blue, I sprang forward and held it! He turned around to see who had stopped him: his face distorted with rage. I left it and reprimanded him for his act. “First of all, you employ a child and then you demand that he carry such heavy things and you try to hit him when he couldn’t do it,” I berated him. “You speak as if this is the first time you see a child working here. Don’t you buy all the grocery every month from here?” snapped that man. This was another jolt! I looked around to see two more children working there, no more than 12 years old, now looking in our direction. Worse was that I could recognize them but never previously did it hit me! Why? Was I so lost in my world?

I silently went back to the counter where the shopkeeper had placed all the items on my grocery list, gave him the money, picked up the stuff, walked towards my bike, placed the packets on the petrol tank, kick-started the ignition and left. All this while, I moved from one state of emotion to another: disbelief, guilt, anger, despair, and then realization! I didn’t plug in my ear-phones this time. I kept my eyes and ears open. I was looking around while riding, and started counting. 1, 2, 3… almost everywhere I could see kids, who should be studying or playing, toiling in the hot sun! Then, I lost the count. I didn’t know how but right at that time I remembered one of my office friend talking about a govt. report, according to which 95% of India’s workforce worked in the unorganized sector (which is not any branded or retail outlet or any software company or industry). I didn’t notice any child labor in any of the offices or the supermarkets; the child labor that was so ubiquitous elsewhere, yet so overlooked. There were countless number of children sweating at work, but did they count? Did they matter? Did they form a vote-bank? Was there anything I could do? With these thoughts in my mind I reached to the comfort of my home, where I had never had to work even for a pencil!