To have just a little

Time always keeps changing, it never keeps still. Sometimes we have good fortune and we have a lot, and sometimes we struggle to get and to keep even a little. What made me distressed ,and still does, is the cruelty of one human being to another. People are unwilling to let people have even a little, while they themselves have a lot, and want to take away even the little that somebody has and leave them without anything. This feeling surely stems from the fear that there is not much to go around and only at the cost of others can we succeed. Nothing could be farther than the truth. In this world, there is so much to get and so much for the one who tries. People perceive scarce means and unlimited demands but there is so much bounty from God, there is something for everybody in this world. But still we think that we must fight for things with each other. Selfishness is the basis for all greed, envy and jealousy. We think we can take things away, deprive people. We are so foolish. If somebody is destined to have something, he or she will, no matter what anybody does. Still we go through the needless struggle and evil acts to keep things from people who are destined for them. It is better to do the right , make your efforts and leave things to God and fate? Lack of faith makes us do things which only hurt us in the long term, hurting others only in the short term at the most. What it definitely does is to show others what we are.

I have seen in my life that the people who get the most are the ones who are the most giving and generous. The ones who grudge others happiness and prevent them from success, are the ones who don't achieve much in the end. Because they are so busy trying to undermine others, they forget to make positive efforts in the right direction for themselves. I think, it is fallacious to run after things and people, you don't get much and just lose your dignity. Whatever is in your fate you will get with your positive efforts, whatever others are destined for, they will get no matter what you do. For happiness , even a little that you want is enough. If you are unhappy and covetous ,jealous and insecure, even a lot means nothing much.

Putting small hands to work

The other day I was getting my car serviced on the rare day when my driver is gone and my cleanliness streak was rearing its head. I left the car at my favorite place and made a round of the shops nearby..when i returned they were just finishing up and I sat inside the care as they did. There was a young boy doing some work and I asked him something and discovered that he was the son of the person doing the car wash. i asked him how old he was and he replied that he was fifteen. I asked him which class he went to and he said i have never gone to school. I was surprised and asked him why, and he told me that his family had never sent him to school. I told him that if he wanted to start studying i could help him. He agreed and told his father. His father came to me and said, he is our only son. We definitely tried to send him to school but he wouldn't study. So I put him to work with myself. I could see that he was lying, because the son was willing, and if the father wanted him to study he would have jumped at the opportunity of free education for his son. But evidently, this was not a priority for him as the boy was working and earning him money.

Such attitudes are pervasive all over our society. Girls and boys are not sent to school for different reason, but the most common is that they, as well as women, are treated by heads of families as assets and possessions, extra hands to work, extra hands to earn. Beset with difficult financial circumstances, our society's lower tier is forced to look at the short term and makes do with available resources, and human resources are the easiest to access. Some do not send girls to school because of finances, security, societal prejudices against women's education or any of the above. Many parents want to educate children but cannot. Many are not convinced that it would benefit them.  There is a need to convince them that education is important. More important is to create an enabling environment where parents can send their children to school, and where they have to.

While private sector, charity organizations or even government led organizations can only do so much to ease the financial burden of the families, the effort to send more children to school cannot be successful without successful enforcement of child labour laws by the government, and to have a system of sending children to school compulsorily latest up to primary level. Without government getting serious about enforcement, rather than only incentivizing school going children, small hands will continue to hold tools of work, mops and dusters, rather than books and copies.