I found a way.

The iron tracks rattled by as I tried to follow them with eyes, which were looking at the ever changing future, I felt a soft touch on my hands. I turned and saw a girl, with rough hair dirty cheeks and equally dirty frock raising her small hands to her lips looking sadly at me. I turned my head and saw a girl who looked hardly fifteen wearing a blue saree standing in the aisle looking uninterestedly at me with her grey eyes, I knew the only thing of interest to her was the coin in my pocket. The pug nose and the wheat colored skin that both the little girl and the girl in the aisle had told me the whole story. I ignored both of them and looked outside the window. Dejected they moved on to other prospects.

I took another look at both of them and I knew if they didn’t have enough by the end of the day, the girl would have to find a client at night, she might end up getting pregnant again. As for the little girl, she would inherit her mother’s occupation.

Giving them a two or a five rupee coin would not have been a big deal for me. But every time I gave money to someone who asked for it I felt as if I was encouraging something wrong for easy money. But if I didn’t give them money the girls will end up hooking up with a drunkard. I can’t get everyone of them work, I am looking for a job myself. I thought as stations passed me by and I arrived at my destination.

I checked my mobile it was nine, the office goers all seemed to be walking in the same direction. I followed the throng. Having skipped my breakfast for the early appointment I felt hungry. I saw a bunch of women selling ‘Poha’ on the roadside from stainless steel cans kept at the back of a Maruti Omni van. I had my fill. Further down the lane I noticed another similar van, but this time the sellers were boys who must have been studying in 10+2.

I remembered a couple of years’ back we had a client in Santacruz who belonged to a particular minority group. I had become friends with his eldest son. One day sitting at his office I had asked him “I notice that all the boys working in your office are from your community, why don’t you have employees from other communities as well?”

His father who was reading a newspaper raised his head and replied “People from your community hardly give employment to people from our community, as a result these kids are easily misled by people who take advantage of them. I have nothing against other communities but I decided that I will employ people only from my own community thereby giving them a livelihood and an opportunity to improve their life. These kids that you see at my office all go to evening colleges, this way they stay away from evil.”

Seeing the kids serve Poha, Idli, Vada Pav or for that matter the guy selling second hand books on the road side reminded me of the man’s words. Create employment everything else will fall into place.

Meeting over, on my way back, at the station I saw a man selling Rubik’s Cube. I had wanted to buy one for a long time now. I had seen one at a supermarket but didn’t buy it because I thought that it was obscenely overpriced. I picked the cube and asked the price. He didn’t respond didn’t even raise his head to look at me. “Bees rupiya”, I heard a little girl call out to me from the other side. It was then that I realized that the man sitting there was blind. I immediately took out two ten rupee notes and placed it on his hand. He felt them with his fingers and put them in his shirt pocket.

The guilt of not giving the little girl any money was gone now. I was happy that I had my breakfast at one of those makeshift kiosks by the road which helped those women in making them self sufficient and by buying the Rubik’s Cube from the blind man and not at some mall and giving my hard earned money to some MNC.

I thought if we continued to buy our vegetables and groceries from the sellers in our locality instead of driving down to malls and filling the pockets of these corporate snobs we will be doing our country a big service. I agree that we will have to shell out a few bucks more but you won’t have to spend your time in traffic on a Sunday, all these can be delivered at your doorsteps. The matter of fact is that the Indian middle class today has such a purchasing power is only because we have always been so enterprising.

Until and unless the money trickles down to the very bottom of our society we won’t be able to create wealth. And people become self sufficient and have access to money they will start thinking of better education for their kids, better sanitation, health and hygiene for their family. All this in turn will help us in the betterment of society.

Who knows may be we would even be able to put an end to girls being forced into the oldest profession in the world, after all its true the treasure lies at the bottom of the pyramid.