STORY OF FIVE RAG PICKERS

Sept. 30,2006. 6 a.m. Dawn. Cloudy sky. No mist. Clean air. Today morning I went into the street to buy some milk packets. (For the questions given in each paragraph, answers are given at the end of this post.)

The first person I saw today was a rag picker. About 25. Unkempt hair. Bright, youthful eyes. Searching with his right hand in the dust bin for recycle-able materials such as waste paper and iron scrap. Question 1: What he was holding in his left hand?

The second person, I encountered today was also a rag picker. White beard. Wrinkled face. Shining front tooth, only one. Limping on his left leg, due to an unhealed sore. He was munching something. Question 2: What he was munching?

The third person, I came acoss today was also a rag picker. She was pulling a cart loaded with saleable garbage. A youthful woman with a muscular body. Wearing a brass necklace of black beads, and an yellow thread with two gold buttons shining well, an indication of being married. Looked delighted at her successes.

The fourth person, I found today was also a rag picker. A small boy of 10, with torn knickers. The shorts were bound to his waist with a red colored cotton thread. He was searching for food in the dust bins. Not with perceivable success. (Food has becoming very expensive. People are cooking small quantities and eating in small quantities. There are not adequate left overs). He was looking disappointed. Question 3: Where could he have found some food?

I wondered: "Why so many rag pickers are on the road today? They are coming like ants from the ant holes.
I invited the boy to my house and gave him something to eat. Thereafter, I gave him some old newspapers. The boy could not believe himself that he would get double benefit. He muttered in a low voice? Question 4: What did he ask me?
__________________________________________________
Answers: Q 1: 1 year old child. I guessed that either the child's mother was deceased or mentally not well.
Q 2: Own saliva. Hungry. Nothing to eat.
Q 3: At marriage halls. Local practice: Guests do not eat all the eatables served to them fully. Because they believe that other guests will consider them hungry poor who have not tasted sweets in their lives. Besides, diabetes patients also leave the sweets in the plates. What a squalor!!!!! Wedding parties are ugly!
Q 4: Old empty beer bottles. I am a teetotaller. I did not have. I could not satisfy the boy. I was disappointed.

This has happened on a day, when the Nation is extremely busy celebrating a grand festival with regal splendor East and West, North and South, morning, midday, afternoon, evening, late night, dawn and dusk, left and right; worshipping the idols with gold and silver. There is even a Durga made of currency notes in some towns.