'Hungry bellies' VS 'The blue ink'

“We promise to provide sewing machines and gas stoves in every home….. (Recorded voice with tempting election offers echoed)”. Sometimes I feel that these candidates provide better offers than Wednesday Bigbazars. A mighty stereo loaded on a mini lorry was repeating these words of an extended list, vomiting out everything fed into it, figuratively speaking, highlight points of the party’s agenda for this year elections. Slowly the lorry took a u-turn and came to halt. Three young boys around 20 may be, who wore a t-shirt which resembled a party office wall got busy distributing pamphlets and explaining the crowd “the need” to vote for their party.

(Period.)

It was about 4 o’clock but the sun was not in the mood to leave. I was waiting for the bus under the shade till I heard the shriek of a woman. When I turned, I found that she was trying to get some help. I rushed to the place without giving a second thought. Few other men had reached there till then. She was with an old lady lying at the back of a broken wall adjacent to the railway track. She was lying unconscious, with mouth agape. White foam was spread out of her and dried up leaving behind its mark on her soiled face. Thick mucus flown out had accumulated below her nostrils. The rise and fall of her chest was the only indication of her being alive. Her stomach had sunk somewhere. It seemed she had no food from days. Her dirty old tattered sari was just enough to cover her body. Sari which she must have not changed from ages, or it was the only piece of cloth that was left with her to hide her body. While one of her leg lied turned with her knee facing the soil, other one was bent abnormally.  Her fist was dug in soil as if she tried to grab on to something out of pain before she went unconscious while the other had stains of some stale food around which flies were wandering. A thin yet long line of ants were riding over that hand of her, picking up their food and were passing down to soil.

Two other men ran to buy water packets while I helped the woman to bring that lady to the shed. The woman lifted her and made her rest on her lap. Two other men were spraying water on her face to bring her back to sense. She was hyperventilating at that time. She opened her eyes at a jerk and closed them slowly to half mast. “Water…water…” was all that I could hear her murmuring.  

Party workers were still distributing their pamphlets avoiding everything that was happening just two steps away from them. Public was also busy grabbing their seats in the MTC bus that just arrived… young lovers were busy talking… spending some time with each other before going home… one pair of lovebirds were treating each other paani puris, while the girl was feeding her love like he was a baby or God hadn't gifted him with hands to feed himself. Strange world, isn't

it? While an old woman was fighting with death and dying just because she failed to fill her stomach, the whole world is busy with their personal reasons without giving slightest of their attention. One of the party members approached me. Handing me their pamphlet they asked me to vote their party this time. With my broken Tamil I tried to convince them to shift the dying woman to any nearby hospital so that she can be saved if they want vote. From my broken Tamil they understood well that I am an outsider and I cannot cast my vote here. So there was no need for them to please me or entertain me. Within fraction of seconds their lorry vanished from the spot.

Thanks to few auto driver annas who shifted the old lady to a hospital and I wish that she gets well soon…

original photo: old lady fighting with death lying unconscious on ground  

Party workers busy distributing their pamphlets who flee from the spot when asked for help

P.S.

“We will give you sewing machine…we will give you gas stoves…..” didn't anyone tell them before that sewing machine will only be needed if everyone in this country have cloth to wear…gas stoves will only be needed when they have food to cook… They left a woman to die without helping, but they wanted vote from us.

These were the party workers of a well known political party which is going to compete on almost all seats over India. Having its roots in UP, it spread all over India this time. No doubt, their party chief too wants to become the next PM. During her reign as CM she has brought numerous developments in her state and now she wants to bring the same in this whole country. Yes...developments…constructing 130 huge elephant structures…This is what they call infrastructural development; I guess… so what if it accounted for 40,000 crore scam, it was a part of development and beautification of the state. When in every corner of India someone dies of hunger each second, our prime motto should be beautification, isn't it? And then they say they fight for backward classes. “Hungry belly have no class”. Shouting only to increase reservation for backward classes won’t make you a good leader. Hungry bellies need food not elephant statues. The statues which should have cost five lakh were brought by state run agency for sixty lakh. Lucky elephants, aren't they? They must be thanking corruption, which made their value sky high. But nothing went into their stomach; they were still hollow plastered from outside by clay, many officials under the project grew stomach not less than elephants though. Yes, she is one of the prospective PM candidates, yes she is…because CBI dropped all scam allegations against her and gave her clean chit. She is clean in records now. But her reflection in public’s eye will come out when the result will be declared...All the so called netas be better answered by millions of hungry bellies this time