The Mirare

The girl in the forefront of this picture is Chinnu [our friend's kid]. She visited our home for her Christmas-New Year vacation. It was taken on Jan 1, 2010, when we visited temple as part of New Year celebrations.

When I was taking the photo, my first reaction was to tell the other girl standing behind her to move away, but she wouldn’t go. Like any other kid she too loved to pose get clicked. So I didn't tell her anything more, and clicked her photo too along with Chinnu. After that I spoke to the girl a bit, gave her some money and left the temple.

Later that day when I downloaded the snaps and viewed them in my laptop, this particular picture kept lingering in my head for long.

Just take a closer look at the photo again, 2 kids, almost same age, same styles, but not same lifestyles; same desires, but not same opportunities in life.
Slowly it grew on me that this picture is a quite a classic representation of today's India. India at 60 yrs of its republic!!

We have made so much progress, so much development; Indians have excelled in almost every field, won so many awards, achieved so much. But there is also another India which is left far behind and sadly the divide still seems to exist.
The picture speaks so much more for itself, isn’t it?

Still we have so much more to achieve, so much more to do. As for that day, I took solace in the thought that I was sponsoring for one such child's education. My bit to bridge the gap, however small the effort may be.

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