Little lives ...

No sane person would enjoy reading the newspapers these days. And I punish myself twice each morning since I get two sets daily. Its normally amusing for me to see the wide disparities between the facts as presented in one paper compared to the next. There was nothing funny about today’s news however. A host of tragic stories – all to do with children. How many ways will we find to neglect and abuse our children I wonder? Abrupt endings to lives just beginning are so much more painful to contemplate – that’s why such stories haunt me for days.

The first story was one of those that will give any mother nightmares. A young mother was feeding her eighteen-month old son near open windows in a ninth-floor apartment. According to one account, the bowl of food slipped from her hand – she instinctively tried to catch it and loosened the grip of her arm around the little boy and he fell to his death. Was it a completely idiotic thing to attempt to feed a squirming child near an open window in a high-rise? Of course it was. Why was there no grill or some such protective mechanism? When builders cut corners, they don’t think twice about something as trivial as children’s safety. The buyers don’t seem to care or think ahead either. Despite all the immediate reaction to cast blame and wonder at how people could be so thoughtless, the overwhelming emotion is that of empathy with a mother who lost a child in the most careless fashion possible. How on earth will she live with herself? When I had two very young kids vying for my attention, I used to lose it with myself and the kids often enough so its easy to understand why she wanted to just get done with feeding the baby and on to the million other things vying for her attention. But it still doesn’t change the fact that the loss of her child was completely senseless and tragically avoidable.

The second story was something I should be used to by now but somehow never can get inured to. A guy grabbed his newborn daughter and threw her on the ground in an attempt to end her life because the combination of her undesirable sex and accursed clubfeet was simply too much for his manly pride to handle. After all he had apparently forced a promise out of his wife that she would only deliver a son – how dare the useless woman go back on her word and produce a freakish specimen instead? The last update mentioned the baby was still alive and struggling for life – every being wants to live, sex and club feet notwithstanding.

The third story is also tragic, perhaps excessively so because it shines a spotlight on how a society such as ours allows young children to be influenced in the most bizarre ways imaginable. A ten year old boy and his siblings were playing by themselves at home. Both parents were away at work. The children decided that they would try to see whether hanging was actually possible or not. They had seen countless movies where forlorn lovers attempted it and were saved at the last minute. They had read enough stories about children hanging themselves from the nearest object after getting a dressing-down from their parents on anything ranging from poor marks to a badly chosen partner to undesirable behaviour. The temptation was therefore present and so was curiosity. So the little guy was egged on to hang himself from the window curtains. Imagine his surprise when he actually succeeded. The other kids raised a hue and cry and neighbours whisked him away to a hospital where he is reported to be in a critical condition. Go ahead – leave kids who know no better by themselves – expose them to the most ludicrous movies and news stories and then expect them to have the judgement to make a sensible choice.

How many ways will we find to let down our children? In India, the answer would be – in countless new and innovative ways. Tomorrow we will end up far poorer for the choice we make today to neglect these young lives. When will this country wake up and take notice? I am simply lost trying to find an answer...