“I was crying for a pair of shoes, when I found someone who had no legs!”

This is about a day back in December 2009 when I was in Trivandrum. I had got a job in a company there just a month ago. My company had organized a visit to an orphanage. Although going there was not mandatory, I went because I had contributed some money for buying Christmas gifts for the orphans.

I do not remember the name of the orphanage. That was the first time I visited an orphanage. Initially I had the notion that there were very strict rules to be followed in an orphanage. I had thought that my visit would be very formal. Never once could I imagine before my visit that it would become one of the most memorable days of my life – a day which will bring tears to my eyes whenever I think of it, a day which will really make me think!

Initially for about half an hour or so it was very quiet, because we had gone to the hall where there were children mostly aged less than 2 years, most of them sleeping. The few that were awake looked at us as if we were aliens. Slowly, one or two, with a lot of hesitation, would come to us and get up on our laps. I can still feel those soft little hands patting on my face and pulling on my hair, those little playful fingers feeling my face. I can even feel myself kissing those soft chubby cheeks – it was so beautiful. There were so many of them. The commotion increased and the sleeping beauties woke up and looked at us with scared faces, and some of them started crying. It took time to calm them down.

Then we were taken to another room where there were children who were a bit older, some, by God’s grace, normal, and the rest, not fortunate enough either to speak or to understand anything. I remember, in that room there was a little girl who got up on my lap, hugged me like she had found her own brother, and she just would not get down or let me go. The Sisters in charge of the orphanage were more than mothers to these little children. A woman’s caring for one’s own child is something, and a woman dedicating her life to caring for so many children with a smiling face, none of whom were born to her, just like a mother cares for her own child, requires more than a mother! That day I understood what Sister means in Christianity. I felt a sense of respect and love growing inside me for them. I understood what being a human being means, and what the word ‘humane’ means.

The day went amidst much merry making at the orphanage. Christmas gifts were given to the children. I returned at home in the evening. It was all very good then. At night when I went to bed, I do not know why, but my heart became so heavy. Thoughts were clogging my mind. Why did I not bring that little girl with me? I did not have a sister. I could have brought her and kept her with my parents. She could have parents. I started missing the love that the little girl gave me.

A big realization struck me. I had always had my own parents by me to look after me through good and bad. I had a family, and my parents had helped me get a job so that I would not die of hunger. I had already started earning and I knew I would be earning much higher in the future – I would earn a lot of worldly comfort. Even then I was not content with what I had. I was always crying for more. What about those children who had no idea to whom they were born, or about anyone in this world who would tell them whom they were born to? They are so ill-fated that they were given birth by some irresponsible bitch whose intended to have some fun with some equally irresponsible son of a bitch. Otherwise they might have been born to some ill-fated mother who had been driven by poverty to abandon her child to be taken care of by someone else, and herself commit suicide.

I do not know when I fell asleep...