Child Labour

Children are the assets and hope of future and Childhood is the most important part of ones life. To be deprived of education at the early age when they are unable to understand the need or use of it is a crime that we as adults are doing to them. It is easy to sympathize with kids on seeing them clean the waste on the tables after you eat or to write articles to enlighten others on the issue but to do the little that we can to help them, requires a ‘resolve to act’ from each of us.

It was the smiling innocent face of a little kid at a Punjabi Dhaba near the office where we go for lunch that prompted me to write something on Childhood and Child Labour in our country. It was the second time that we went there for lunch and this little tot captures the attention of everyone who gets in there with his ‘Excuse Me’ plea when interrupted amidst his work of cleaning the tables that we dirty. The smile on his face is innocent truly oblivious of what he is losing.

Childhood is the most vibrant and important part of our life where we are gifted with the natural curiosity to know and learn, when the curve of learning has a whooping high slope. But sadly, children are the ones who are the most easily exploited.

I was forced to google on Free and Compulsory education guaranteed by our constitution to children below the age of fourteen; at least for the sake of understanding the loopholes in the system which has made the implementation of this guaranteed right a seemingly unrealizable dream. Here are few points that caught my attention.

. India has the dubious distinction of being the country with the largest number of child laborers. Statistics reveal that we have 17 million children working in agricultural, construction, household, manufacturing and various other forms of employment.

. The Supreme Court has already held in 1993, that citizens of India have a fundamental right to education up to 14 years of age. Undeniably, this right remains largely unimplemented.

. Socio-Cultural and Economic conditions of parents force them to send their children to work .

Karnataka now has a State Resource Centre on Child Labour. All individuals and civil society organizations interested to be part of the initiative may contact it. The Centre also plans to bring out a bimonthly e-journal on Child Labour, for which it welcomes contributions from development professionals.

Call Basavraj K, Deputy Coordinator of the State Resource Centre on 26531258 , 26531259 , 26531260 ( Extension number 152 ) for further details.

Time and tide......!

Time management is what I’ve been thinking for a long time now and is one thing that I think I’m really bad at. How much ever I try I end up hurrying at the 11th hour and making a fool out of myself many times (Not(e) that I’m not one otherwise…) anyhow!

What is prompting me to write this now (When I’m actually packed with a lot of tasks, being in office after a long weekend and my application is one that requires a lot of extra stuff on the start of the week- too many weekly reports and jobs to be run), is that I missed my bus for the nth time today in the last three months. However to keep my resolution to not miss my bus I hired an auto, chased the bus and got it 1.5 KMs off my bus stop ( also didn’t want to go back home and make my husband feel sorry for having married me - PJ intended ) Hope it clarifies how I make a fool of my self!.

This time around, I’m going to make a serious analysis of how I managed time to be late .

Yesterday was a holiday and I got ample time to set everything for a good start to a week. I was done with the cooking for dinner before 10 pm. And there was time till 10:30 before we had it. I could have chopped 1-2 onions for the kadla curry I made in the morning with Puttu…Not that I forgot , but brushed aside the idea thinking that I could chop it fresh and my curry would be tastier with the freshly chopped onions..(At least not a bad thought …)…My inclination to perfection to be blamed.

The alarm was prompt when it ran at 5 .But my hand pressed and snooze button without my consent. Maybe J was right when he asked me to set the alarm for 6. But then, I had so many things to do in the morning including the 30 minutes practice session for the ‘Spirit of Wipro run’ that I had planned. But when the alarm rang at 5 I felt that even if I get up by 5:30 I can squeeze in time for all that I planned. Over expectation and unrealistic plans to be blamed. (The practice session for SoW run started a month back and since then till date I’m only planning to practice – My Time Management to be blamed)

Alas! Sleep was sound henceforth and I did not know till 6:30 when I hurriedly got up and rushed to the kitchen. Baked Puttu and cooked kadla curry (half) before I woke J for making tea and mixing the cooked kadla and fried onions and masala.

Had a quick bath, dressed up, packed breakfast (though managed to have tea together) and rushed to the bus stop to find my white bus slowly fading away from sight…!!
Time and bus waits for no woman!

...

I speak to everyone in the same way, whether he is the garbage man or the president of the university. -Albert Einstein, physicist, Nobel laureate (1879-1955)

Ethnic Day !

Last Christmas..!!

A lazy day..!!

The day was bright in the slightly cold weather of early winter, another lazy end to a not so busy week. The desktop of my colleague was running slow due to a lower RAM size and I was looking for something to read on the net with nothing official at hand to work on .I offered him to use my desktop and slowly slipped out of the recently packed, with more unknown faces than known, offshore development center of my workplace.

The glimpse of the nature outside was soothing and I set out on a stroll. Though the greenery out was not natural, the warmth of sun seemed original. Slow paced I walked to the other building crossing the gate. All seemed busy and happy. I could hear talks in different tones and pitches around. Nothing seemed to amuse me not even the Malayalam conversation that I heard here and there.

Slowly I walked to the ‘Oxford Book House’ in the ground floor of the Centre Court. The store was relatively empty with only the bookkeeper in his seat. It was long since I went to a book store. I decided to spend some time there ‘window-shopping’. Shobha De’s ‘Spouse’ was the one that had me hooked first. Newly married, I could relate well to many of the topics that she narrated. Read two chapters and I kept the book for a later read. A collection of Calvin and Hobbes adventures was the next to catch my attention. A quick flipping of the pages enjoyed reading few of Calvin’s pranks and I decided to keep it back. A cursory glance at the technical books section “oops..not my cup of tea anymore”. I checked the time and I had spent close to two hours with books...

My colleague would have done with the daily check activities and it was time for me to walk back… I walked out of the book store when the Greeting Card session caught my attention. Just went through few cards.. “Best Wishes on the anniversary of your Job” – yes it was the day my husband completed 9 years in work. Thought I would buy it for him but then it seemed unlikely of me to buy a greeting card, so kept it back. Decided to send him a mail insteadJ.

I slowly walked towards my tower passing the lawn where there were few nests of birds which escaped my eyes for long. Peeped in to check if there were any birds or eggs. There was none.

By then, it started drizzling and I walked back to my seat – empty for some time now.

A lazy friday afternoon.!