I love to read, novels specially. I always wonder how people detail everything when they write some 400 odd pages of story full of fiction without losing the flavour and me on the other hand struggle to make sense in the once in a while post of my day to day happenings. Well talking about authors my current favourites are Indian authors, that is because you can always relate to the place in which the story is set, the people, the food, the culture, the essence of the land.
My latest read is a book by Kashmira Sheth called "Boys without Names" . The story is about a boy and his family and how they move from a village to Mumbai, in search of a better life. The story is about how the city of dreams turns out a nightmare when the boy gets trapped in a world of child trafficking forced to work for a ruthless master in a factory of beaded picture frames. The kids are locked up in dungeons, fed just to keep their hearts pumping, they are neither allowed to reveal their names nor allowed to talk to one another. They are never let out of the dungeon but for once in a while errand. The kids are thus deprived of good food, fresh air and sunlight.
The story made me cry (I'm not stone hearted after all!!). When we hear of these kind of atrocities against kids, for a second we are happy that our kids are safe and make us all the more protective so that things like that do not happen to our kids. Once I finished reading I was happy as well as sad...happy because the book had a happy ending, Gopal, the protagonist, the kid from the village, could read and write. So while he went out on the once in a while errand he handed over a message to the shopkeeper asking him to help them out. The shopkeeper promptly informs police and the kids are reunited with their families. "Aall izz well" my heart cried out!!
But does it happens in the real world?? There are thousands or lakhs of kids around the world who face a similar situation. Do kids like Gopal get reuinted with their family? Do we even care?? this makes me sad :(
