Children's day - a cruel joke

This is going to be an impassioned plea. No, Not a plea! I hope at least it does not turn out to be a rhetoric. Celebrating children’s day is almost becoming a cruel Joke. The word ‘almost’ is used here to suppress my anxiety, rather my anger.

I stepped out of the railway station two days before and this small girl touched my feet. The saddest part was this small girl had a child in her arms. I shook my legs and walked away. I felt terribly bad after doing that, but did I have an option? Suddenly I realized that here are two children on behalf of whom this country is celebrating children's day tomorrow.

“The Hindu” Carried this statistics on the children’s day last year and they were stunning.120 million children work as labourers, 25 million between 6-14 do not attend schools, 85% help out in the fields in villages, 11 million survive on the streets begging, stealing, drugs, one tenth does not even reach the age of 5.

The last 5 years only 3% of the questions raised in parliament were on children (An entire session was spent on debating who stole more money!). The government coughs up a meagre 208 rs/- on a child. There are schools in my very own state having a single teacher for 5 classes. FIVE classes? Is that how we want our kids to learn in our schools? And we are talking about a state which is one of the most developed in the country. And greater still, we are talking about the privileged few who have an opportunity to step in to schools.

Let’s face it! Children’s day is a farce, it has been and will be one. Why can’t we celebrate it as our first prime minister’s birthday and keep it simple? We will remember his sacrifices, listen to a politician speak about him, take a break from our daily routine and watch a movie. It suits us better.

It is very difficult to celebrate those whom the world forgot to remember.