Children of Heaven

I absolutely love small children and I have always wanted to do something for orphans. One of my friends told me about a needy orphanage and I recently paid a visit to offer a treat. There were about 20 to 25 children huddled up in one small shelter. These were kids born to people having extramarital relationships, people who did not want to be burdened with the task of having to grow them up and other situations. Most of them were around 5 to 10 yrs old. The girls slept on torn mats on a cement floor and the boys in another building. Looking at all of them actually makes your heart melt, but if you ask them - they are just thankful for the food and shelter. They were real friendly too so if anyone would like to lend a hand - do help them out.

I have a real soft corner towards kids and I really hate to see children suffering in life. I am sure many of you guys read about the brutal murder and sexual assault of 2 small kids from Coimbatore, a few weeks back. I was totally shocked when I read the gory details of the story. The girl probably wouldn't even have known what happened to her. In a land where kids are considered to be blessings from God, I was unable to digest the fact that someone could do something that inhuman to them. The grotesque incident made me boil with rage. When I heard about the encounter (most probably a fake encounter) in which the kidnapper was killed, I was actually happy in a weird way. Believe me, if I had seen him at the scene of crime, I myself would have shot him without a second thought.

Every single day I hear some news or the other about kids being sold into labor, prostitution and drugs. There was a time when kids would be just running around here and there happily. Now parents lock them up at home in fear of kidnappers, child molesters and pedophiles. I cannot imagine how anyone with a sane mind would actually kill an innocent child. Maybe those people never had a good childhood to begin with.I guess that's where the problem lies. A few months back, I read a 11 year old boy raped and killed a 7 year old girl in Chennai. I mean, all I could think of kids at 11 years is playing video games and here's a boy who's on criminal records at that age!


I can't imagine what would happen in future - would a 5 year old smoke pot and go on a rampage killing people? Who am I kidding - there is already a 2 year old kid in Indonesia who's addicted to cigarettes. God save the world!

                "Children are like wet cement. Whatever falls on them makes an impression.”

The Evolution - Part 2

I managed to fill in the rest somehow. However, it might have a serious tone to it from the last part owing to me being not a child anymore. So read on :

13 Yr:    I found myself looking at the mirror more often than once each day and started to wonder if I was pretty or fat or ugly or thin. I loved listening to Backstreet boys, Spice girls and Westlife. I even used to collect posters of singers. It was also my last year in Bahrain, I cried when I left my school and moved to India.

14 Yr:    Had a tough time coping with the education system, school, food, life and everything. I could never have imagined anything worse than this happening to me. I found the world to be not so much of a nice place like I imagined. Gibson laughed at my school uniform  and my double braided hair ( it looked like a dog's ears for him). He told he’s going to join some better school but in 2 months time he joined my same school.

15 Yr:    Life was getting more bearable, I was getting really close to my sister. I enjoyed being with my friends and bunking tuition. I cut my waist-long hair till my shoulders for the first time in my life. I also started talking in Tamil more fluently.

16 Yr:    I wondered if I should go to Chennai for college after my boards. Everyone was going there and my brother was also calling me there. This was the part of my life where I fell in love with a person who I was going to be glued with for the rest of my life- yes my husband. The love-life looked all easy and filmy- the chocolates, the smiles, the hushed-up phone talks, the gifts.

17 Yr:    I joined a college here because of Dan who wanted me to study with him. Even my close friend Ranjana joined me. I suffer immensely during my first year and ended up having an arrear, sleeping in class, firing from the lecturers but the next semester I get the hang of it. At this point of life I come to know about dark things in the world and wonder if all this could be really true.

18 Yr:    I started sharing my sorrows with my sister and we bonded like anything. I go for occasional visits to Vellore for my mother’s treatment. In CMC Vellore I see the crowds of sick and handicapped and understand the value of good health God gave me. I started to wish the next 2 years would fly real fast so that I can finish college and go for work.

19 Yr:    I got placed in TCS and I thought everything is going to be awesome in future. I knew there was only one more year left and I could finally do something I wanted too. My sister applied for a college in Chennai. I cried because I missed her a lot.

20 Yr:    Tuticorin is all I could remember as I did my final year project here. I learnt to catch buses, get toasted under the merciless sun, share a bed with 5 girls, wait in queue to go to the loo and come exhausted home. Finally, all goes well and I become an engineer. I also missed my college life  a little.

21 Yr:    My better-half wanted us to get married so we struggled and suffered and we finally got hitched. I thought marriage was a bed of roses like in the big screen but soon I realized it wasn't exactly like that as it comes with a add-on package of ‘responsibility’. The first few months were the hardest but we made it through thick and thin.

22 Yr:    I master the art of cooking with few incidents of burning my hand, cutting my hand, opening the pressure cooker with steam inside, salt-filled food, hot-oil creaming over me and burnt-food. I also start to hold fishes, chicken, meat without wanting to throw up. I also truly understood the pain of losing someone precious to my heart when my dad passed on.

23 Yr:    Today, I am balancing life between family and work. I have the most remarkable husband who gives me so much freedom, a caring mother with her helping hand, awesome siblings who no matter what will stand by my side and generous-hearted friends who would do anything to see me happy. I understand now that the good people are not that good and the bad ones are really not that bad. I know that people can be the worst judges most of the time and the world can be cruel, but I also know that amidst all this I can truly learn to be happy and that somewhere down the lane I might be able to look back at all this and have a wonderful story to tell.