Some other children

Amidst all the chaos of my Children’s day preparations, I clicked on the NDTV homepage featuring some other children-the ones losing their struggle for surviving beyond the day.

It took me back many years to a tiny, deserted railway station in Rajasthan.

We were returning from a college trip and the train slowed down at a signal. A woman walked close to the train, with a little baby in a basket. A couple of us were hanging at our usual spot near the compartment door and I leaned out and waved merrily at the baby.

The woman seemed to rush over, talking desperately and almost thrusting the basket at me. Unable to follow her words, I stepped back, was she begging?

My friend pulled me up a step  as the train picked up speed again. The woman ran the length of the platform holding out the basket as I fished out some money and started to throw it near her.

“She is not asking for money,” my friend insisted, “she wants you to take the baby.”

We had left the platform by then and I was still struggling to understand: She was saying she was going to throw the baby on the tracks, then she saw you looking at her, and ran after you.

It took time to sink in.

Was it real?

That woman was really going to throw her baby on the tracks? Why didn’t I grab the basket?

“Are you crazy? Just imagine the hostel warden’s reaction if we went back with a baby.”

I was still shaken. We could have given the baby to some NGO, some mother who would have kept her, but it was too late.

I still feel guilty.

Because I am afraid that nobody else grabbed that basket either. And that baby too met the fate that so many other baby girls in our country do.

I still want to go back and help a few babies like her. Writing about her is just the beginning, I hope I can do something more.

Someday soon.

Thanks to blogadda for picking this post-we need all the help we can in rooting out this evil

Mom Skills-I

Long before reskilling and picking alternative skills became the buzzwords, all Moms have been doing it. I may take a shot on a compounder’s (the guy who used to scrape wounds with stingy, smelly stuff and tie bandages-remember?) job.

Yeah not one to cringe at gory sights, I have dressed enough different types of wounds of my own (driving a two wheeler since you are twelve teaches you a lot about life) to qualify.

I now react to my kids’ cuts and bruises, nosebleeds and bangs on the head with the same degree of equanimity as I would to a project manager’s email about an imminent deadline- a part of life!

I have learnt to diagnose which are the wounds that need scraping, a comfort Band-Aid, a stern rap or just a jadu ki jhappi! 

I have held babies through those routine vaccinations, tetanus injections and even stitches on the younger one's forehead (and managed not to hit the Surgeon who took so long to do it).

And with a kid who complaints of throat pain to explain her unfinished lunch box (stomach ache results in "no junk food" for the next seven days so it is not a common ailment), I also learnt to check for tonsils. 

However, I did have to rush a kid to the Dentist when her milk tooth refused to budge inspite a very painful, newer one, growing in its place. 

When I told my neighbor (a mom with two boys) about the visit-she was genuinely puzzled: Why do you need a Dentist for pulling out a tooth? I could have done it ………

Oh! 

And I thought I was the smart one…