00516--The Little Girl in the Rain




The Little Girl in the Rain

It was a rainy morning.  For me there is nothing better than to hope for a rain.  In Ahmedabad anything that hides the sun is always welcome.  It was a relief from the heat.  I was on my way to the highway where the university bus would stop for the employees and the students.

There were a few huts on one side of the road.  The first one in the line almost touched the road.  The rain was not harsh, but still it was doing justice to the monsoon season.  The street was almost empty though it was 8 a.m.

Each house seemed like an introvert.

They held back their thoughts.

It was peaceful.

The road was full of gutters and I had to be cautious at each my step.  I also had to be careful about the vehicles that occasionally passed by.  They could shower you with muddy water.

It was then I saw a little girl squatting on the tar road.  She was facing opposite to me.  I could see utensils around her.  The door of her house was closed. No one was around.

 I passed her by, and I looked back. 

She was just seven or eight years old.  I suddenly had an urge to capture that image.  I had recently bought a camera.  But it was at home.  If I went back I could miss both my bus and the girl in the rain.  My mobile had an inbuilt camera.  I was about to take out my mobile but then I couldn't.

I stood there still.

She didn’t even look at me.

She was lost in some thoughts, and was mechanically doing the dishes.  The rain drops that fell on her head were rolling down her face.

She wasn’t crying.  But indeed the childhood in her was crying.

Was she imagining the utensils as toys? Was she enjoying the rain?


I couldn’t see any spark of joy in her eyes.  Her bending figure was a silent request to let her back to the warmth of home. 

It would be possible to capture a seven year old girl who was washing the utensils, but it was impossible to capture the stillness I saw on her face.  The cloudy sky above, the muddy earth below, the sad music of the rain and the little girl and myself couldn’t be caught in a still frame.

I captured her image in my mind, and turned and walked away so that I wouldn’t miss the bus.

As long as that little girl was in the rain, I knew, my country would be fine and prosperous.  Things should remain the same.  Humanity, I thought, at least in my country is subjected to vasectomy; thus no possibility of the girl entering back home; no possibility of a revolution that would right the wrong.
 
I was to take a class on Ethics and Values for engineering students that very morning.  In the class I asked them to come up with an ethical issue that bothered them.  When they were searching for one I narrowed down the range and asked them specifically about an ethical issue that they came across in the very campus they study.  One student came up with the issue: ‘prohibition of the use of mobile phones in the class room’.

couldn't wait.  I asked them about a girl of 12 or 13 who works as a sweeper in the university canteen.  All of them must have seen her there.   Is her being there an ethical issue?

Where is she supposed to be? I asked.

In school.

The soft answer came from a student who was sitting in the front row.  I could see a change of expression on everyone’s face.  Obviously they have never thought of that girl being in the canteen sweeping and cleaning as an ethical issue.

Yes, it is an ethical issue.  Their silence agreed with me.

Before moving to the moral philosophy of Immanuel Kant I wondered what that little girl in the rain might be doing at that moment.
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