I left house to go to office in the morning. It was a usual 15 km ride in the auto. I was listening to "how to save a life" by "the fray" on my cell. I reached Adlabs square and the signal was red. I am listening to music oblivious of the activity around me and suddenly out of the blue I see a small 5 year old boy shirtless wearing only one pair of a rag of shorts and nothing else coming towards me with another boy, a toddler clinging to him with no clothes on at all. It is 37 degrees heat. Hot and merciless sun beating down on them. But the thing that shocked and moved me was their vacant dull almost dead eyes. These are the kids who have no privileges at all and here i am (Grateful to GOD) blessed with a decent life.
I could not tolerate the lifelessness of these kids. So i got down from the rick. And stood their looking for those kids. They were, of course, begging. And giving them money would have been a crime coz it wont be used for them but just taken away from them by elders(who in my opinion are worse than pimps!). I saw 5 to 6 kids out of which 2 were toddlers standing in the chowk and waiting to go for begging again...
I herded all those kids to one side of the road and fortunately had a dabba with some sandwiches in it. I made them eat the sandwiches and had to feed the toddlers myself. Once done I left them and ironically they started begging again but i could at least see some spark in their eyes(yes i know you will say "it may have been my imagination" ).
While i was walking a short distance to the office i was waiting for euphoria to hit me in the face coz i had done a good deed. But sadly nothing happened. And i was feeling more depressed than before. I could not get this unsettling feeling out of me. I realized there is so much pain in this world that one small measly good deed is not gonna make me feel good.
In-fact, wishing for ACHIEVING happiness over minuscule good deeds that you do is like wishing to find "Never-Never Land"!
