I was waiting for my train at Mumbai Central Station. I reached there 1 hour before the scheduled departure of my train. I found a vacant seat and perched myself on it. Having nothing to do, I was looking around the hustle and bustle on the platform. Just then a rag picker caught my attention. She was crushing the discarded mineral water and soft drink bottles and collecting them in a sack. She was being helped by a boy of about 7-8 years old. He was probably her son. He was opening the lids of the bottles and handing them over to his mother to crush them. They were doing this job as if it was a ritual.

And suddenly I saw something that disturbed me to no end. I found that the boy was picking up bottles which had a little bit of soft drink left over in them and was drinking it!! The quantity of soft drink left over was obviously insignificant to its original user. But for the little boy it was like a gift. He was happily sipping away the left over soft drink from each such bottle. Some bottles had the quantity which could be called a swig while some others had just a few drops in them. But the quantity did not matter to the little boy. He was happy that he was getting to taste a variety of soft drinks.

I suddenly felt the urge to see the happiness on the boy’s face if he gets a whole bottle of sealed soft drink. I looked around and found a few refreshment stalls nearby. I went to one of them and bought a small bottle of Maaza. I went to the boy’s mother and gave it to her asking her to give it to her son. I saw the bewildered look on her face and smiled at her. She took the bottle but did not hand it over to the little boy. I wondered what she was waiting for. She then called out some name and another little boy came running to her. He was younger to the other boy, and was aged about 4-5 years. The woman gave the soft drink to her younger son. He grabbed it happily and started drinking the contents. The elder boy was just looking at his brother and said nothing. He neither asked him for the bottle nor made any attempt to grab it from him. I felt sorry that I did not buy a larger bottle. I then convinced myself that they would both share the soft drink. But the younger boy showed no signs of sharing the drink with his brother. Moreover he was tempting his brother with each sip. The bottle was 2/3 empty.

The elder boy then looked at me and smiled coyly. I wondered why he was feeling shy. Was it because he now knew that I realized how poor he was? Probably not, ‘coz he must be used to his poverty by now. It must be ‘coz he now realized that I saw him drinking the left over soft drink from discarded bottles. When he saw me the second time, I called him and gave him the money he needs to buy another bottle of soft drink. He took the money hesitantly and ran towards the refreshment stalls.

I felt peaceful after that ‘coz now he could buy a soft drink for himself. But even after a few minutes I didn’t see the boy coming back to his mother with his new soft drink bottle. I looked for him at the refreshment stalls and found that none of the stall owners were ready to even acknowledge his presence at their stall. They probably thought that a rag picker’s child cannot buy anything that they have on sale. After struggling for a while and shuttling from one stall to another, the boy finally managed to buy something to eat. He took it and ran away happily along with his younger brother.

The whole episode made me think……

Is India Really Shining??!!!