Invisible Children: Dreaming of a sojourn in sorrow

I watched a documentary today called 'Invisible Children', it was a 10 mins long documentary that sparked thoughts and questions that are rolling from one side to the other in my mind. The documentary was screened by a student organization, it was about child trafficking in India. It focused on the state of Bihar, a notorious state known for high poverty, illiteracy, vulnerable to floods, where politics is in shambles. Being poor and illiterate has its own disadvantages, the documentary showcased how during the time of floods the families deprived of their home/food/money/land/possessions helplessly agreed to give away their children for some money. These kids are initially told by the traffickers that they will be living in palaces and will be eating lot of food and will be earning lot of money in the cities. So basically, these kids were lured into the business of child trafficking without them having much clue about what the reality has in store for them. There are young boys and girls who are trafficked, they are mostly in the age-groups between 5-15, maybe less or maybe more. Most of us have seen the tinsel screen version of fate of these kids in Slumdog Millionnare, where kids trafficked were shown to either beg on the streets or become prostitutes. It really makes you mad, makes you go crazy when you see the horrendous life towards which these kids are pushed.

The documentary I watched had interviews of several kids who were rescued. They shared how they ended up being sold to someone, when they were really young and landed up being treated brutally. I remember one of the interviews, where a little boy was kidnapped when he was 11 years old while he was grazing cattle in the forest. He was told by two men that they had sweets for him and then he was taken to a place far away, threatened with a knife and eventually sold to a carpet factory owner in a city. The boy said that there was a group of kids who were working in that factory, they would work straight for 12 hours/day, weren’t given much to eat and if they fell sick they wouldn’t receive any medical help. The boy said that once while he was weaving the carpet, it was past midnight and he fell asleep with the needle in his hand. The owner got really angry when he found this boy sleeping, he poked the needle in his chest and did some other brutal things to him which I don’t want to talk about here and asked him to not shed a tear. The boy, while revealing his story was all choked up when he said that 'humko ronay bhi nahi diya unhonay' (they didn't even let us cry). I sat there watching and listening to all the stories, my heart was wrenching, whose wouldn’t? But then I kept thinking about possible solutions. My mind was stretching out in all possible directions to think of a way to change the things the way they are today. I asked few questions in the end but was put to silence by responses like, it's a vicious cycle, the system is bad and nothing can be done, etcetra etcetra. It was frustrating-- how long can we blame the system and shirk our responsibilities thinking that nothing can be done because the system is bad??? 

On a positive note, I came across an article on farmers of Bihar who were able to raise their productivity using SRI (system of rice intensification) methods. SRI methods comprise of a certain technique of transplanting rice in the fields, that helps increase the overall productivity without use of chemicals. So, these farmers were basically increasing the productivity and their profit manifold using organic farming methods. The article concluded using the examples of farmers adopting SRI methods and said that if things continuesd in the same fashion then the state has a potential to become the richest state in the country! I am attaching the article, HERE.

Going back to our problem of child trafficking and child labor, one of the triggering factors is overpopulation. In the rural areas, most of the families have atleast more than four kids. One of the interviewees in the documentary was a mother and she confessed that they have so many kids in the family and it gets really difficult to feed all of them, so they have to send their kids to work. The documentary also showed that there were government schools that became defunct because there were hardly any kids who were going to school. There were lot of govt. programs that were mentioned in the documentary that were of no help, there were several NGO initiatives that were mentioned, there were several IAS officers who were talking in that video about how grim the situation is, all that basically created a very sad and a hopeless picture....

(GOOD NEWS!!!)

However, while I was growing all despondent thinking about these so called ‘invisible kids’, I stumbled upon something that brought tears of joy in my eyes….

Please read this article and see this video. You’ll know what I'm talking about, once you see these kids playing Beethoven and Mozart, you'll be immersed in wonder too...

The article is about an initiative in a landfill area in Paraguay, where in 2011, musical instruments were made out of recycled materials. These instruments were crafted very creatively by a person who was tenuously aware of the great contribution he was making to the world. I wouldn’t ramble much about this and leave you  with a thought that its always inspiring to realize the Power of Music :). I liked what one of the music teachers in the video says ‘we are not training these kids to become musicians, we are striving towards social transformation’.