This one was a long pending issue in my mind. Just that I had the patience to write it out today. Have you seen Angadi Theru, a Tamil film (Shopping Mall in Telugu)? The thought ignited then, and now it’s giving me sparks of pain whenever I hear / face / read / see about the struggles of village parents in their quest to have their daughter get settled with a married life.
Agreed that money plays the game of life, but what if it starts to consume the life itself? Textile companies in Tirupur have a unique HR policy. What the corporate firms term it as year-end bonus or 5-year bonus; they have customized the scheme simple enough to be understood by the parents who have children aged between 14 and 20 years, living in remote villages of the state. Little did the children knew that it is not the hi-fi, mall culture they will witness in the city they enter, but hell; a hell where a person unknowingly begins to suffer a slow painful death. Yes, am talking about child labor and child trafficking and inhuman labor practices and forced dowry practices and so on…
The recruiters working in Government registered units themselves hunt for bringing in the kids in their teenage. And their parents are those who in the quest of seeing a cash of one lakh rupees generously send the kids to towns, neglecting the thought that their education is henceforth stopped. The thought of satisfaction we get when we hear that these are the parents who at least didn’t kill / abort the girl child as when born goes into ashes at the juncture where the same parent forces the girl to be sent to work for the lump of cash promised by the recruiting company at end of few years of service. And is the girl ready to work in a firm that follows such a HR practice? How will the work environment be, for a company that follows such an inhuman policy? The children (I refer them as children and as I said, they are aged between 14 and 20 years) are made to work in 12-hour shifts with breaks as bare as five minutes and a thirty minute lunch break. Their fragile bones not strong enough to support such a work-life, though there is no life in the work they do, most people come out of their works in few months. And the lump-sum promised? Oh, it’s clearly mentioned in the bond that the sum will be provided only at the completion of service to the firm.
The money dreamt to be used for the marriage of the girl now places the marriage itself in doubt. If it is believed that government can peek in and change the situation, the government supports the dowry, the demon, itself in an indirect way. Sumangali scheme (from Tamil Nadu government) is one where a sum is deposited in the name of the girl-child just born that gets matured when the girl reaches eighteen. The matured amount then only changes its position from a bank-locker to the hands of the bride-groom whom the girl gets married to. If at least the money is forced to be used only for the girl’s studies, the girl would have realized enough of the world to find a match for her that doesn’t warrant a dowry.
You thought am referring only to girls? Where do you think the boys have gone? Most boys get frustrated to the core that they begin to hate life itself. (At least girls have some bigger patience!) Their mind oscillates so much that they become of addicts to various bad practices (you know what they are…).
Is there a way to stop such practices, at least, in the future? - Only if proper awareness is made on a mega-scale. To me, the mega-scale means the way by which low-budget films (for instance, Angadi Theru, itself) become blockbusters – just through word of mouth. Just because I don’t know the count of children brought to the cities by such means doesn’t mean I am citing just from few rare examples. I have had my share of childhood days followed by a healthy teenage. Just that I want my juniors to have the same.
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