Hi friends, Happy New Year.
Many great thinkers say that we must utilise our talents. Each one of us has got some or the other talent within us. We may be able to utilise our talents. But is this applicable to all? Let me tell you a small incident. One day, I went for marketing. I was to buy a kilo of gram shrubs (chhole ka saag). The shopkeeper had his little daughter with him, who would be hardly four-year old. When I asked the shopkeeper for the saag, the little girl immedieately took some saag from the basket, and handed it to me. Not being sure of its weight, I asked the shopkeeper to weigh it. Moreover, why should I trust that little girl? Even the shopkeeper thought she had given me less saag, and tried to add some more. But the girl didn't allow her father to do so. She was dead sure that the saag she had given was of one kilo.
To keep the wish of his daughter, the shopkeeper weighed the saag without adding extra. But he held some in his hand to add it after proving her daughter that she was wrong.
But to our surprise, the saag in the bag weighed exactly one kilo. I was surprised at the determination of the little girl. First of all, without weighing, she had picked up a kilo of the vegetable, and then, she had full faith on her measurement. And her measurement was really accurate.
After that when I was going to pay the price to the shopkeeper, the girl said that I had to pay more, as the price of saag had risen. I was stunned to see her way of bargaining. Only if I could show you!! Later when her father chided her for doing this, she started crying. To stop her cry, I was forced to pay some more money.
We have seen the talent inside that little girl. We have also seen her way of protest. She would surely grow up to a good seller of raw veggies. A time would come when she would be married, and would accompany her husband in the corner of the street selling potatoes and onions, and would indeed make a good sale of it.
My question is, does she deserve it? Doesn't she deserve more? Would her talent be limited only to that extent? Had she not been the daughter of a mere shopkeeper, she would have been somewhere else. Her talent would have been known to the world one day. Today she has protested for her right return for the vegetable. Tomorrow she would have protested for her rights and others' rights. She would have become the next Indira Gandhi or Kiran Bedi. You may be laughing at my statement, but just feel, could this not happen? It could have happened..... But sorry, this won't happen..... This won't happen because she is the daughter of a poor vegetable seller. Her poverty won't let her expose her talent. Even if she wants, she cannot do anything because of no money, followed by no proper education. I'm sorry to say, but this is a bitter truth.
Can anyone of you take the initiative to come forward and help children like her, get proper education and be able to show their talent to the world?? Today when I myself show my works to you, you say, "you'd become a great writer one day" and so on. But will you be able to assure this to children like that small girl? No. Then why not try to make such children like us? When a small boy begs on the road, he doesn't beg money. He begs education, he begs a better living, he begs to be one like us. But we send them away most of the time thinking that they beg without doing any work. But do we ever think what work he can do?? Have we given them an opportunity?? We have taken our new year resolutions. How many of us did include in our resolutions that we must help children like them?? Of course, it may not be possible for many of us to incur huge expenses towards educating them. But if we contribute a little towards them, it would help them a lot. Don't do thinking this a burden. May not do thinking this a duty. Just try doing it thinking yourself a human being..... Trying to help a person like you..... Exposing the talent of a roadside genius like that vegetable seller's small girl!!
