Tonight, I am angry with India. Tonight, a little boy is going to bed alone with a fever. He has no one to look after him but the teasing shoves of the five boys who share is dormitory room.
As the children stood around the trash tonight, juice from hot-sweet mangoes dripping down their chins and arms and falling from their dusty elbows, I noticed Sakthivel sitting by himself. I went over and almost before sitting down, I could feel the heat of a fever radiating off his skin--a fever is a dangerous thing when the weather is already close to 100 degrees each day.
I help Sakthivel find a clean shirt amid his messy trunk which holds all his possessions--mostly threadbare clothes. He is quiet, pensive--a sick little boy in the middle of a country that refuses to give him a mother, a father, a family. The children's home model is a common one--parents and relatives with no safety net, send children they are unable to care for to live in homes like SEAMs.
As I sat silently beside Sakthivel, I felt the hard, pulsing sting of tears behind my eyes. I clenched my jaw and put a comforting hand on his little, threadbare shoulder. He looked up at me with gentle eyes and I found it harder to keep the tears hidden inside my own eyes. I wanted to lay a cool washcloth on his forehead. I wanted him to know someone was worrying about him. I wanted to be there if he woke in the night and I wanted to make him breakfast after the fever broke
Later, finally alone in my room, I let all the ocean of salty-sad tears fall. I'm not just crying for Sakthivel, though. I'm crying for all the lonely children of India, and though my eyes will eventually dry, I know my heart is constantly crying for change, for the dreams of these children and their fevers and their tired, dusty feet.
As the children stood around the trash tonight, juice from hot-sweet mangoes dripping down their chins and arms and falling from their dusty elbows, I noticed Sakthivel sitting by himself. I went over and almost before sitting down, I could feel the heat of a fever radiating off his skin--a fever is a dangerous thing when the weather is already close to 100 degrees each day.
I help Sakthivel find a clean shirt amid his messy trunk which holds all his possessions--mostly threadbare clothes. He is quiet, pensive--a sick little boy in the middle of a country that refuses to give him a mother, a father, a family. The children's home model is a common one--parents and relatives with no safety net, send children they are unable to care for to live in homes like SEAMs.
As I sat silently beside Sakthivel, I felt the hard, pulsing sting of tears behind my eyes. I clenched my jaw and put a comforting hand on his little, threadbare shoulder. He looked up at me with gentle eyes and I found it harder to keep the tears hidden inside my own eyes. I wanted to lay a cool washcloth on his forehead. I wanted him to know someone was worrying about him. I wanted to be there if he woke in the night and I wanted to make him breakfast after the fever broke
Later, finally alone in my room, I let all the ocean of salty-sad tears fall. I'm not just crying for Sakthivel, though. I'm crying for all the lonely children of India, and though my eyes will eventually dry, I know my heart is constantly crying for change, for the dreams of these children and their fevers and their tired, dusty feet.
Sakthivel (L) and his little brother Monickam (R)
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