His feeble legs were nothing but
two slender bones covered by wrinkled skin. And those trembling legs weakly
supported his old frail body. A torn shirt and a piece of cloth were his only
possessions apart from the iron axe that he was carrying. His old age and
physical weakness had told upon his walking. He was too weak to walk properly
but he carried the iron axe and pulled himself towards the jungle. He had to
collect some fire wood for his subsistence. A day’s hard labour would fetch him
a head load of wood and a head load of wood would fetch him `20. The old man feebly walked away and
vanished in the jungle.
The evening approached. The
CFL-lit glittering market did not make much sense to that poor old man who had `20 by that time. But a small shop which
was crowded by some rickshaw pullers and rag-pickers sold him some basic items
like rice, dal and onion for the evening. The old man left the shop with a
happy feeling that the day was about to pass and he was still alive.
Throughout his life he had fought
a hard battle to survive. And till now he had to sell his labour regardless of
his age, infirmity and time because life still lingered in him.
Next day the sun appeared
brilliantly in the sky and sat in the west as usual. The old man after a day’s
hard toil could collect the same fixed `20
by selling his wood to a wealthy household. He went to his known small shop but
the shutter of the shop was closed. All the shops of that kind had closed their
shutters because The Govt Had called for FDI in the retail sector. `20 did not make any sense because the small
shop was shut.
No comments:
Post a Comment