Cursed are the ones who take birth in the slums. Khushboo, a rag picker’s six year old daughter had the ill fate to take birth. When she was three, in the slums where she lived, a fire broke out. The flames engulfed the whole slum, the only residue left were the ashes of the homes of the now homeless people. Rag pickers died, got injured, became paralysed after this inevitable calamity. Khushboo is one such girl whom the paralysis targeted. Not able to move her right hand and both her legs, she lives. She has been barred from speaking. Not able to utter a word or let out a sound, she mourns alone and swallows her agony.
A courageous and brave heart she is, lived through three years of her childhood in the body of a dead while her soul yearning to leap out and sing to the world the beautiful dreams that she had woven. Last week when I met her, an innocent smile lit up her face. She used her other hand to communicate with me. But today brought tears to my eyes. She refused to even look at me. I could feel her pain rushing through my veins. Oh! How much her heart was yearning to let out a scream.
A dog bit her yesterday. Oh sorry, not bit but rather “tore her flesh”. Her pink, juicy flesh of her elbow was clearly visible. It wasn’t stitched by the nurses. A patch of her hair was also gone leaving a bald portion in her otherwise thick hair. There was a huge scar, it was a dog’s tooth mark. After a thorough interrogation, her mother said that she had taken Khushboo to a government hospital where they were out of stock of the Rabies injection! She then took her daughter to a private dispensary where they gave her a tetanus. Her elbow was not even stitched. The agony that poor girl is suffering, to top it off she can’t even let out a cry.
Even death is more peaceful than living a life worse than hell!
