I am little tea pot....

Carrying a hot aluminum teapot in one hand and a minimum of 4 teacups clubbed in-between his little fingers on the other, little Das walks towards the factory lane to serve tea to the owners and workers. When asked how old are you, he proudly replies “Mein bala saal ka hoon!" Is he interested in studies? Says he, “ Why should I waste my time going to school? I have my own tea shop here. His parents stay in the Momura village near the Noida-Ghaziabad highway.... He is just one such kid I came across.... and m sure many more exist like him.

By Choice!

Crying out “Sector12, 22, Golchakkar… Panch Panch Rupya…” little Rakesh works as a conductor for the three-wheeler motor vehicle commonly known as Vikram which networks from Noida sector 62 till the Golchakkar near the Noida-Delhi border. Ten year old rakesh works from morning five till nine at night, earning a meagre sum of ten rupees. His father is an electrician and mother a Homemaker. Being the only child his parents have tried their best to coax him to go to school. But school does not interest him.
Be it foggy winters or dry hot summers the child wants to work. He is often made to stand in the moving vehicle when its full with passengers. He keeps shifting between the seats in the moving Vikram. This could be fatal in case of even a small accident. But he dosen't really care.
He gives his earnings to his parents. But they are not happy with him working at such a young age.

Thatha's Departure
Today is the 19th of February… a day I can never forget… Two years ago around 7:30 pm my grandpa passed away. (…my dad’s dad) February 19 2004… I was in the third year of my college. Grandpa came home from hospital two days before. But he never spoke… he kept looking at the ceiling and would not respond to anything we said… there was a nurse to attend him. He kept placing water bags under grandpa’s feet. There were tubes connected… I guess the dialysis and more than a month of hospital had had a bad effect on him. We kept hearing a gargling sound for the two days when he was at home. That day I did not go to college and busy with some work that year winter was in its best moods. I went to the nurse after lunch and asked him how was grandpa doing the nurse said he has fever and too much congestion in lungs. For more than ten days all my grandpa had was nestum. Its given to babies. It was being given to my grandpa through a tube. I didn’t know whether he was hungry. I slept for some two hours after lunch. And went again to his room to see if there was any improvement I guess I was expecting to much.. All I wanted to was he recognizing faces. I saw tears in his eyes... I took a tissue and wiped them. I sat next to his bed. I kept calling him thatha... he did not look at me... but at the ceiling and there were tears again.. according to the nurse it was just the water coming out of his body because of weakness... But my mind did not agree to that... May be he goto know that his time was up... and he was crying... I had seen death closely just seven months back. My granny (mom’s mom) had died. The first dead body I had ever in the family. I felt sick. Coz I had grown up talking, being pampered, by her and suddenly I see her dead in front of me… could not accept the reality. I feared the same should not happen this evening. My dad had gone to office that day after a month. He came back early that day.. so did chacha and chachi.. We were taking him to the hospital as the nurse said gushing out the large amount of phlegm from the respiratory tract would do him good and he would be relaxed. So we all started out of the house to take him to the hospital… he died just before being put in the ambulance. And I saw another close person leaving the family… forever…