I turned the front page away from me in pain and
frustration. The headlines screamed that one more child died after being stuck
in a bore well for more than three days. Did anyone in the country think that
child had a chance when we first read about it? No one was under the illusion
that this would be a story of hope and rescue – countless little lives have
been lost before and will be lost again for one simple reason – greed.
Furthermore, after so many incidents, there is still no clear plan of action to
be followed when a child suffers such an accident. So each and every time it is
a harrowing repeat – a slow motion film being played over and over again with
the same beginning and ending and only the little bodies being different.
Why am I writing about this when my words won’t make any
difference at all? I write because I cannot not write – this time the four year
old who died so tragically had the same name as my daughter. I couldn’t read
the article for the tears. Days after the incident it still refuses to leave my
mind. One precious child thrown away like she was worthless dross. It was her
birthday. Her parents were too busy celebrating her life to notice that she had
already fallen to her death. There is no point allotting blame – the child will
still remain dead – and yet how can one comprehend the carelessness and lack of
supervision that causes these tragedies time and again?
In my opinion the greedy illegal well-diggers who thought
nothing of leaving a 70 ft bore well uncovered, ought to be hanged. It is
murder after all to knowingly endanger another’s life. Could they not have
covered the well? Or put some warning sign around it? They couldn’t simply
because what they did was beyond the purview of the law and they couldn’t afford
to draw attention to their activities. So dig half a well and leave it open and
then move on and do it again without a thought as to how many lives are lost –
why should they care? The ones who died were not the children of the
perpetrators of these crimes. They haven’t been punished ever – not even in one
single case. I am not going to waste my words on wondering why the government
authorities don’t crackdown on these activities. It is the shortage of water-
something that is part of the basic rights of every citizen that forces ordinary
people to buy water at exorbitant rates from these illegal suppliers who in turn
dig the killer wells. So who is the ultimate villain? No one comes out smelling
of roses in this scenario.
The government offered monetary compensation. I wonder what
the going rate is now for a four year old girl anyway. The parents blamed the
authorities for not responding fast enough. The authorities point out that the
child had died within a few hours of falling in. No one seems to feel the agony
that that little girl must’ve undergone – dying in the worst possible way – in fear
and dirt unable to breathe enough even to cry. And this on the one day when
everyone should have been wishing her “May you have many more”....
No comments:
Post a Comment