I am the Child

by Jugdichry
(Mauritius)

My name is Krishna. My name is Radha. I am also called Ali or Fatima, Ah Sen and or Ah Moy, Pierre or Marie, Peter or Mary, Ivor or Olga.

I was born a male child. I was born a female child. I had no say about my gender, my nationality, my skin-color. I did not choose my parents, my community, my caste. All these have been mere incidence of my birth.

I am pampered. I am neglected. My birth was ardently wished for. I was accidentally conceived. I was conceived as a result of a rape. My birth was unplanned, unwanted and regretted.

My mom tenders, cares and loves me. My mom just hates the sight of me. Mom feeds me, and sings me to sleep with melodious lullabies. Mom does not care if I die of hunger, and lets me cry myself dry. Mom smells so sweetly Mummy when she presses me to her bosom. Mom permanently has an aura of rancid sweat, stale tobacco and disgusting rum, odor floating around her. In my eyes, Mom looks so angelic, so pretty, so beautiful, so neat, so Mummy. Mom is always haggard, ungainly, wrinkled, sweaty, mud-covered from the field, with dirt under her finger-nails, always so dog-tired.

I am the healthy, bouncing, cheerfully laughing kid, playing and romping all about in my parents’ comfortable mansion in London, Paris or New York. I am the deformed, pot-bellied kid with match-stick limbs and snot covered nose and cheeks. I am the kid hardly surviving in the dirt-filled ghetto of Ethiopia or in the murky, mosquito-infested jopar-pathi of Mumbai’s suburb.

I am the pampered, spoilt child who is never refused anything, including soon-to-be-broken and soon-to-be-discarded most expensive toys and games. I am the uncared, starving child who vainly craves for the least morsel of food. I am the kid who is sent to the best school and provided with the best teachers. I am the kid who is simply never provided any education; or, at the best, I am one of the nameless thousands mass-brain-crammed in overcrowded classes and leaving, after 6-10 years of “schooling”, practically as illiterate as when I had joined in. I am the extra-protected child. I am the poor small child who is stolen from, or abandoned by, his parents, is deliberately and criminally crippled and maimed and is made to beg in the streets of big cities.

I am the child growing up in the highly protective, snug and cozy home of his parents. I am the child blindly fleeing the bullets and bombs in the war-torn rubbles of Palestine, Israel, Iran or Libya.

“Never talk to strangers”. “Do not accept sweets or chocolates from unknown persons”. These and other similar warnings are arch-repeated to me, as a child. Nobody warns me of the dangers inherent within the four walls of our “safe” home. About the pedophile uncle or aunt who lures me with chocolates to sit in his/her lap, and who, from under my dress, thrusts his hurting finger inside my vagina or caresses my tiny penis. About the uncle or cousin who, under water in the piscine, compels me to hold and caress his erect cock. About the uncle, who creeps in the bathroom while I am taking my bath, and forces me to kneel and take him in my mouth; or about the aunt, who slips in the bathroom and thrusts my head between her thighs. And then enjoins me, with bribes and threats, to “keep our sweet secret between us”. I am a child, victim of pedophile, inside the safety of my own home.

I am a child, everyday victim of pedophile, sexual assault, rape and sodomy in the dark streets of every big or small city of our “civilized” world. Nobody cares. Nobody gives even a passing thought about my lot or the lot of my likes. I will probably grow up to become a monster, a criminal, a rapist. I will grow up a prostitute in a dirty whore-house, an abomination, rejected and excluded from the “civilized” society.

I am a child. Weak. Fragile. Malleable and easily molded. Into a model citizen. Into a misfit. I need protection. I need guidance and help.

For, I am tomorrow. I am the future of Mankind.