This could be one of the worst stories you would have come across.
Actually this post is more of a personal thought for me which I have seen and witnessed right in front of my eyes.
I am sure many of you would have probably encountered similar or maybe even worst stories…
The idea of this posting this thought is to bring to light situations like these and learn from them rather than run away…
They were quite a progressive family I would say. Atleast much before when we actually came to know about them. This girl and her two brothers…
Their house was just two doors away from us.
We are three siblings. Born and raised in Mumbai. I vividly remember the moments where all of us as kids used to play together.
Power cuts, rains, storms couldn’t stop us at nothing. We were a bunch of kids, me being the youngest, five girls in the group and 3-4 boys amongst us.
We used to play together till the fag end of the day.
When it was 8.00 pm, it was time to wind up.
Serials, chayageet, chitrahaar, news etc would precede our lives. And we as kids would still yearn for the next day to break so we all could meet again and go wild in our playgroup.
It was all innocence personified. I don’t recall a single day till date when we had any difference of opinion over a thing or two, exchange of bad thoughts etc. None ever so existed.
Suddenly one fine day we heard that this girl’s dad passed away while travelling in a local train. He was standing at the foot board and it seems someone frisked him, maybe pushed him (You see, Bombay trains are always that crowded, so I guess it came to us as no surprise that it happened to him.)
And then for a few days it was all calm and quiet. We rarely got to play but we did play our our own houses though!
They say sometimes when the going gets tough, it gets even worse…
As fate would have it, the boys had to discontinue schooling and resort to the local municipal school. So you can imagine the level of education then… and there at the municipal school.
Badly maintained classes, poorly managed curriculum, teachers who cant tell an A from B and teachers who were never there for kids since the holidays in govenement owned units were far more than the actual school days.
Both the boys just got carried away and got astray! No father to control them and they just went with the flow… for worse!
The elder one resorted to drinking, smoking and what not… attracted several diseases while the younger one became mentally ill and one would often spot them at their doorsteps demanding alms.
It was one hell of a living for this girl and her widowed mother.
After that all that we heard about these two boys were that the elder one as expected died with some chronic illness while the younger one resorted to begging.
And he didn’t spend a single day on his own terms. He ate what others gave him and lived a life we only see in movies and the sadder parts of the town that we normally hear from people around us.
I ponder over the days and still feel that things started falling apart for this family much earlier than anyone could ever imagine. And these chain of events led the family seek refuge in a lesser world around us.
By the time we all could really figure out, we all had outgrown over them. We had our own set of problems and life’s demands. I guess somewhere down the line, I used to remember this girl. By age, she was almost a year older than my eldest sister. She still comes and haunts my thoughts… those happy days… carefree days…
But that’s not the end…
After she left our place, she was working in start up company on daily wages. Imagine one day you don’t go or fall sick… You lost your day’s salary. We are the lucky lot, we receive atleast a decent salary by end of the month in our bank account directly. And I still can’t thank God for that!
The last I ever heard about this girl was that she got married to another loser who dumped her for someone else and fled away… leaving her alone once again.
This poor girl is still in a pretty much bad shape with no support whatsoever. Her mother is too old, weak and fed with what life had to offer her…
I wonder if life, chances, fate etc has anything in store for her.
We too fall and fail sometimes. When we do, it is a bad time for us. But then we do rise again and fight and we have enough people around to support us.
Like they always say that there is a ray of hope at the deep end of the tunnel…
But for this girl its just another dark and gloomy day… everyday!
Coming up another sad story… which is more of hearsay!
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