The child with the mountain of courage

A crusher machine is grumbling. A wheel is spinning crushing the stones. A man shoveling and pushing the big  stones into the crushing area like a man feeding the coal into a running steam train engine. Air is dusty all around. It is making the sweaty body more sticky. The conveyor belt is carrying the stone chips and piling it up to be taken by the trucks to construction areas. These stones will be used by the for the developmental work to make roads and railway tracks. It is a place near Raipur Chhattisgarh where these stone mining are happening for the fast developing state. 

There was nothing beautiful about this scenery. Then why this small child is sitting constantly and lost himself with the sound of the grinding machines? He has wear a cap and without afraiding the dust and parching sun above. 

I went near him and asked what is there so beautiful he is looking at?  
My cousin is working there. He replied 
His name was Santosh Kumar Kaushale and lives in the nearby village. 
It is just that his shift is over, he was taking some rest. 

You must be 12-13 years old, why don't you study why you are working here I asked. 
I earn money here from here. 
He earns a mere 2500 rupees and gives 2000 to 2200 rupees at his home to feed a family of three sister and parents. 

I was spellbound by the words of this courage of the dusty child. At my age I am still asking money from my father to fulfill my needs. But this child has the responsibility of his home at the age of 12. 
At time when Chhattisgarh is achieving a 11% growth rate I feel there is miles to go to achieve a real human index growth rate.



Chandan

A- Traction of Travelling

The child was crying. Two children were sitting below the shed of a tractor which was in the process of loading the mineral stones from a pile of stones. His elder sister who will not be more than 3 years is not able to calm him down and had a wound on her face. The boy child has white powder like thing around his mouth. I opened his mouth. There was a chunk of soil inside it. I called the mother and told her that the child is eating soil. Her mother came near seeing his mouth said "ye to bacho ka kaam ji" (child do like this only). She held the small child up into her chest. Within seconds the child stopped crying child calmed down. I saw a rare smile on his innocent face in the mid of the deserted land in the under a harsh scorching sun. I requested the mother can I take a photograph of both of you. It was a shot of a lifetime...

The place was one of the white clay mining area near Bikaner, Rajasthan. 10 odd women and few men were working in the pile of stones searching something. I asked a man what they are searching in that pile of stones. He said they are segregating the useful mineral stones to be taken by the transporter to distance places like Gujarat and Maharashtra, that makes the things like china clay pot and bath fittings to be used by the metropolitans. 

Rajasthan it was! My first time to this biggest state of India. It was a small stint of 4 days in the totally different part of India. I fell in love with long stretched horizons, the laborious people, thousand door palaces, straight roads, the Indira Gandhi canal in the mid of the  desert, the camel tangas... Every part of it like picturesque. You do not have to be a great photographer to take a good photo in Rajasthan. I was roving on the sand after my work when i saw these children also watching my colleagues with amusement. 

The rag and torn clothes, barefooted, dusty hair, tanned skin, innocent smiles on their faces... The whole desert was like their playground. It made me remember my childhood. How we peep like a giraffe when a new vehicle comes to the village.

The disparity of rural and urban divide came across me when I was moving like a tourist inside the heritage city of Bikaner. 2 children asked me to take their photograph while their school bus was coming from a distance. 

So these are the things that attracts me travel more and more. So I renamed my blog as  “A-Traction of Travelling”. There some inherent force about India that attracts me to travel gives my feet a traction to go a miles ahead just to meet more and more people in my life.  The farmers, the noise of the smoking silencer of a tractor, the long wheat field swinging with the evening wind, the dusty roads, small children... makes it a worthwhile. So I call it,  It is not just another day at office.



Chandan