I am a thirty year old educator, full of confidence and exuberance, and on the threshold of realizing my dream of doing a doctorate. I have recently been selected for a course in a prestigious university in America and will soon realize my dream of studying in the land of opportunity.
Even now, as I sit down after a hectic day for a cup of tea, I cannot but feel blessed for the life that I lead now, and gratitude for my angel Mrs D’Souza overflows. Had it not been for her and her kind heart, I would have been one amongst the scores of people begging on the intersection or collecting garbage for daily survival.
‘Survival of the fittest’ is a law of the jungle, as well as the concrete jungle of cities, and very few children actually survive the street life and its accompanying difficulties for long. Trust me, I would know-I lived it for most of my life. Surrounded my the dirt and grime of the city, we aren't spared by nature's fury either, and life seems a curse we suffer with every breath we take.
One day of my previous life, I was rummaging through garbage in a colony in the scorching afternoon June heat, looking for something to eat. Suddenly the colony gurad caught sight of me, and started hitting and scolding me, not caring that I was just a hungry seven year old child. A lady who lived nearby, Mrs D'Souza, heard my cries and came out, shooing the guard away, and taking me home-the first home I ever set foot in-to feed me. The simple bread and butter she fed me, overwhelmed and petrified as I was, was the best thing I had ever eaten, and the softness of the bread still lingers in my mind. It was sheer heaven.
Hunger was only the first of my curses Mrs D'Souza rescued me from, though. I often visited her-my angel, the first person whose eyes had shown affection rather than indifference, love rather than scorn-and we soon became friends, sharing our thoughts and feelings, sorrows and joys, and of course, the bread and butter, which was a staple par tof our meetings. One day, she met me on the doorstep, and instead of inviting me in, took me to a school which had been opened in the neighbourhood for underpriveleged children. Till now, it had just been another crumbly bulding for me; soon it became another safe haven. Getting into it was a struggle, however-the procedure was long and complicated, and it seemed laughable enough to my young brain that it took so much trouble to get an underpriveleged child into a school built, all things said and done, specifically for her.
I soon started living in a hostel provided for by an NGO, along with other blessed girls like me who had gotten a second chance at life. I studied harder than I ever would have, just to please Mrs D'Souza, to make sure her efforts didn't go in vain. I wanted to make her proud-and I did.
Today, twenty three years later, as I sip my tea after a long day's work, I realize that it is people like
Mrs D’Souza who are the true, albeit wingless, angels of God, sent down to put a smile on faces and food in the belly; a shining light to give a ray of hope to people accustomed only to darkness and drudgery.
An old, middle-class, non-descrpit woman, full of kindness and grit and love, shaped the lives of so many children, helped them live with dignity, and instilled in them the same values, so perhaps they too would help the less fortunate person some day. If only all of us had such a heart, the world could be such a happier place.
