ACQUIRED IMMUNITY.........

The small servant of my neighbors.....saw her many times a day...sometimes carrying the heavy bucket of washed clothes up to the terrace, sometimes giving the evening stroll to her master's kid, and sometimes carrying the heavy shopping bags. All this....at an age when she needed love, care and concern, not responsibilities and chores....... time when she should have been fed, not earn her own food and roof................

this poem is a dedication to her....and all the other children who strive to earn their own living at such a tender age.......

I have lived in darkness,

I don’t know light,

Done what they want me to do,

Have no idea what is right.

To do chores, have always been on run,

Am ignorant to the idea of fun,

Been always dressed in rags,

Don’t know how it feels, dress with tags.

Food to me means, chapatti dry,

Never even thought of trying a pie.

Money I get, seems like alms,

And can fit in the hollow of my palms.

I cradled the child in my arm,

Fed her with milk, her mom away when,

I barely myself am ten,

But water is all I have, my thirst to quench.

Have never imagined a life but this,

Getting four meals a day is my idea of bliss,

A roof over my head,

And to sleep, a small bed.

That’s where the zenith of my dreams reaches,

Destiny has sucked my life away like leaches,

But to complain and cry will be of no avail,

Attempts to change my destiny will always fail,

With destiny now I have done a deal,

Whatever it gives, it does not make me feel.

The most innocent phase of life-CHILDHOOD!!...the only carefree, fun filled and enjoyable time that life provides....... but the phase has been tainted and scarred for many.....putting their delicate body to work under grueling circumstances, lifting weights more than their own body weight........

Can their be any inhumanity greater?? Making sure that own family and child has all the luxuries of life and robbing other's child of their childhood??