The Hand Behind The Roasted Brick - THE STORY FOUND AMONG THE TORN PAGES OF A CHILD LABOUR

On a fateful day, at a fateful time,

Took place the unfortunate birth of mine;        

I call it fateful because, from then on it was only hell that I could see,

I call myself unfortunate as no great heavens were waiting for me;

I don’t know where or to whom I was born,

My first vision of life started with a wakeup call by an automobile horn;

The Sun was my alarm and the moon my mattress,

The foot-path was my home and the sewage my play-place;

Begging turned out to be my profession,

I also acted a thief on some occasions.

It was on such rare occasions that I found the contractor,

Who caught me red-handed and taught me about character;

He hired me into his construction business,

And assigned me the job of taking care of the mess;

All I was supposed to do was to distribute tea among the workers,

And to cater in the canteen in the working hours;

But, I being a restless boy, could not just wait in the canteen

And so I ran throughout the construction building examining every machine;

The building became my school and the workers my tutors,

I learnt architecture, I learnt fitting,

I learnt cricket and I even learnt molding;

Soon I was the most loved person on the site,

Everybody would want me at his place to assist him when no one else is in sight;

For nine months I have worked so, with honesty and pride,

And finally presented it after keenly viewing it from side to side;

Today I have got no work at the site of construction,

As it is the day of the inauguration;

I stripped myself into the clothes; the contractor had presented me yesterday,

And with pride and confidence I walked through the crowd;

The place was bursting with visitors and celebrities,

And I could feel all the appreciation from the depths of my heart;

“In fact I have worked so hard for it and I deserve the appraise”,

Thinking so I have slowly passed the entrance with a bright beam,

When I suddenly heard a huge scream;

A large man never before found at the site came rushing to me,

Picked me off the floor and threw me;

I was startled for a moment and then I understood what it all means,

I almost forgot that the site is now a building,

And the entry for a road side beggar like me is not welcoming;

I cried at the sight of the blue uniform under the authoritative face,

Trying to shove me away from my own place;

I never had a home of my own,

And never had I gone to school;

My life has known nothing but bricks and clay,

I screamed at him at the peaks of my voice,

“The building might be looking gorgeous with its blue paint,

But deep within, the bricks still hold my finger-prints which shall never faint”.

My screams were heard by none but the contractor. He took me into his arms and consoled me. And that is how I turned out to be a professional builder from being a child labor working for his daily wages.