The little Girl in the balcony

I happened to live in one of the metro s of the country for nearly 2 years lurking around completing my business administration course. I was no stranger to Chennai but somehow I felt strange! Everything has a new beginning and new ends, similarly I finished my higher education and it was time move to on to the next level ,yeah! the job market ! most of my class-friends have done it leaving a few in the class including myself. Wait a minute this is not about my job search or how I toiled  over  interviews and ruined myself preparing for it coz nothing happened like that ! I am that soul of the class which seldom grabbed any given job opportunities nor attempted any interviews! And I don’t regret it a bit for my decision ! I just wanted to be a “Master of administration” not “Master of Business administration”. BLAH BLAH BLAH… yeah I decided to pursue my place in the Indian civil service ,so I joined a decent training centre in the city so moved places ..to one of the posh localities of the city A.K.A “Anna Nagar” one of the buzzing locality of the city with lot a of high end consumer interests and improved settlements! I lived in the 12th main road. The whole locality was filled with enemies I tell you ,they were playing with my mind (fellow civil service aspirants),where ever you go inside the 12th main you might meet wannabe civil service guy or gal ,I’m one of them! Believe me  during the rough 3 months I stayed there ,I studied ….yeah they finally screwed me .doing 5 chapters a day in various subjects ! I happened to be a tenant of a old house – 3rd floor ! By this time most of my buddies were working faraway places or outta town jobs so it was hard meeting anyone ! The place was filled with the mixture of apartments, single homes and dorms for students. It had well laid wide roads comfortable for the abundant traffic in the area! for me every day was a challenge coz I have to study everyday and make up for the test properly. soon I got used to this updating myself about the country whatever it might be ! Everything but the house , it was a home build to bake people inside as it had low ventilation and hardly any air available for comfort and with Power cuts “I became literally HOT!”every time inside the house ! So during the evening hours I spent my time in the terrace reading my day to day subjects .Surrounded by Coconut trees  and mango trees the evening time was like oasis without the hot sun ! I spend my break time watching parrots ,crows ,Grey sparrows and squirrels playing along the tree nearby and flying for their place when the sun sunsets. Apart from these temporary changes in the sky and the trees  ,there was something I get to watch every day! The little girl in the balcony. she lived in one of the apartment building near my home. The thoroughly welded grilled balcony appears like a cage from the distant view! She might be barely 5 or 6 years old I think! Though I do not know her! But I know where she might be in a given day ,The balcony. The little girl s favourite past time is colouring books ,she might spend the whole day or half of the day doing something in the balcony. The other day she might be playing with her grandparents. Reading books to her parents or she might be sitting along with her father. Whatever might be her pastime starts and ends in the balcony. I’ve never seen her playing in the compounds of the apartments or the outside with the neighbouring kids outside the apartment. Though there are kids near my home playing in the evening hours after school! There used to be times when kids flock like birds after school playing something that might deviate them from the pressure s of school. There s nothing wrong about her spending quality time with her family inside the home, the thing is how along will they keep their child indoors. For me she reminds me of tweety bird inside a cage although she is happy inside, but there s a silent want of getting outside the balcony when she looks down the balcony at kids playing in her neighbourhood street. Still the little girl in the balcony stays in the balcony and tries to live there her very own playground. I don’t blame her for her situation. People just don’t feel safe anymore nowwa days and the same goes for their kids, their parents try to protect them through every possible way they can do and in the process even isolate their moment in day to day life. Today s Indian metro bring in the perfect  place for a comfortable living, health care facilities, platform for quality education and apt job opportunities. This also brings in the best negative atmosphere elements like robbery ,theft,murder,extortion,kidnappings and kangaroo courts along these lines. These advantages have become attractive for these anti-social elements. The most vulnerable among the society is women and children, among them the children are the most affected due to crimes like child labour, sexual-harassment, human trafficking, forced begging, physical as well as mental harm and kidnapping! It is these nefarious modus operands in the metro s harm the future of kid ,leave alone the little girl in the balcony. These ugly reasons urge the parents to avoid contacts with the society which adds on the with general attitude of distrust among the neighbours. People just don’t trust other people anymore.Social stigma has widened like canyons and continents in these part of the world. Everybody just live their very own island and just don’t give a damn to others. Coz they suspect you ,blame you for their fears and hate you for breaching their privacy, all they need is a nice opaque life. By failing to identify the real threat from the phony threat, they are denying the freedom of their child at an very young-age and fail to keep an eye on the real anti-social elements by avoiding neighbours and the social life in their locality. They are actually trying to emulate a life in a shell  ,which makes them more uneducated about their society they live and they loose an valuable opportunity to refine this society. Meanwhile, after a three month stint I returned to my native place due homesickness and real sickness here I am wondering in my home out there in the “Balcony” about the little girl that whether she had a new colouring book or a wild colourful life out there with the other kids…

Note:In the last three years more than 55,000 children are missing and currently 4.5 crore are into child lab-our in this country !