God's Lesser Children

Children enjoying the rain; making most of the little they have,

Image by AABIYAH ZEHRA

W O K A L

CHOSEN ONES OR GOD’S LESSER CHILDREN?

Image by AABIYAH ZEHRA

Image by Aabiyah Zehra

I S S U E 0 2 S E P T E M B E R 2 0 2 0

GOD’S LESSER CHILDREN

While we felt cooped up inside our houses, not once giving a thought that at least we could afford a roof over our heads and food on our plates, there were these mortal beings who continued to move out of their shelters and risk their health for the sake of a few grains. If there exists a supernatural power that has created this world and all celestial beings, what makes them so different from us?

Alina Ahmed questions the great divide.

I often question the fact that I was born in a family fortunate enough to provide me three meals a day, adequate education, and a sound bed to sleep on. What have I done to deserve all of this without making the slightest of efforts? Is it a sheer chance that I wasn’t born on a filthy street, that I didn't have to pick rags in order to afford two meals a day? And will all of these provisions guarantee contentment? What has any of us ever done tobe born the way we are? Am I or people like me God’schosen ones or are they God’s lesser children? They might have been blessed with fewer amenities and lesser opportunities, but the way they carry on their life, living it as it knocks and somehow finding joy in places where dejection thrives, makes them the truer children of God. They make the most out of what this rough wild world lays down for them.

Images by Aabiyah Zehra

Images by Aabiyah Zehra

Being home quarantined and having the time to finally sit and contemplate, my balcony became my watchtower, I had the chance to observe the great divide much closely. I could see a slum and its dwellers. What caught my eye were the little ones whose eyes gleamed with dreams and smiles shined the brightest while dancing in the rain. I haven't seen smiles that bright even on figures studded with diamonds and golds. Children tried to amuse themselves with acts so different yet pure. Longer electricity cuts led them to fly kites for hours. Those who couldn’t buy kites, waited long enough to catch fallen, severed kites. For them, catching these kites meant nothing less than found treasure. Water shortage made them wait for rain so eagerly, they enjoyed the first drops of the season nothing less than a water park. Played games in the mud and puddle. Oh, what fun they had! For once they tempted me to jump in those puddles too. Well, no sane minded privileged person would do what these children did out of glee.

Watching this I remembered something from the very famous web series, Sacred Games. Subhadra, the protagonist's wife, once told her rich, gangster, husband that when she was young, she would watch rich kids going to disco parties, she could not afford. But at the 10 day festival of Ganesh Chaturthi, she would dance to her heart’s content because then, the whole city would rock to blasting music.

ACTS SO DIFFERENT YET PURE

Images by Aabiyah Zehra

The pictures might tell us about happiness but I, or anyone for that matter, really understand their hopes and aspirations. I could only feel their joy dancing in the rain, what I could, not was their hungry stomachs that growl when they go to bed without food. I could see them catching kites but what remained hidden was that unlike kites, you cannot run and catch education or opportunities.

These children might find joys in small things, but happiness cannot last long in small proportions of everything they get. Dejection, abuse and misery seem to have cornered these innocent souls and nothing is more heart wrenching than these demons snatching away their innocence. This great divide between the masses might have become so acceptable that we have become indifferent to it, something so basic, that we seldom see it as a problem.

The only part we do is to feel sorry for some time and then go back to killing more opportunities for these children to thrive upon. Maybe at times all of us have also benefited from this divide and that is why we continue to subsidize it to our advantage. Maybe, at times we would have upheld the utter fact that they actually are God’s lesser children. Well, what if we are God’s lesser children who didn't know how to give or share? What if we are lesser children because we don’t know how to help? Maybe we are God’s children with a lesser heart.

B y A L I N A A H M E D

Photographs by AABIYAH ZEHRA