the spices of our pieces (#yourstoryindia)

whirlpools

i once looked at a pair of whirlpools that were the eyes of a street child who sat calmly perched atop a footpath with a stray dog treading around his feet, and was reminded something my father had once said to me, "it doesn't matter what your circumstances are, happiness and its intensity are universal." and this idea i saw reflected in the eyes of that boy, as i wondered why my own pair of eyes didn't match the ferocity of his.

blink once, blink again. it disappears.

the essence of india and its culture lies in the rawness of the feeling that is planted inside every soul who has been exposed to the jagged edges of such experiences, be it in the smile of a naked child on a footpath or in the arms of a woman who stares deceptively into your eyes, wrestling with your sympathy in an attempt to convert it into something monetary, something that will translate into value for her.

its only fair that you give me some of your money, for i am the reason you will be grateful for your circumstances before you go to bed tonight.

but instead of helping the needy, we look to the gods - stash our money at the feet of idols with scarlet skin and beady black eyes, and wish for them to be a tad bit unjust in favouring us, the same way in which we were to them instead of those who evidently seemed to need it more.

we live in these contradictions in between.

having been exposed to the crudest things, we go on to live rather lax lives, and float somewhere in the middle of the dodging between housing the urge to do something to help the needy and realising that even the greatest efforts won't fill in the cracks of the dried up fields within which so many faceless farmers squeezed their bones within in a final attempt to look for help. the greatest efforts won't silence the wails of the withering baby with tiny fingers who was a product of the whim of her distant father's fixed glare, which made two fleeting decisions - first, that people who look at starving, wailing babies can't resist the urge to offer a small compensation for how unfairly blessings were distributed in this world, and second - that he must have a starving, wailing baby of his own. at once.

little did he know that the system would adjust to accommodate the change he tried to instigate.

soon, parents would be telling children, like mine did as i gazed intensely into those whirlpool eyes, "no, don't look at them. they choose to be this way. they could be earning, working hard if they really tried. if we help them, they will never learn."

and our children are left confused again. it ceases to matter. 

a sincere frown is no longer enough to evoke their sympathy.

what have we done?