I am lucky - Why ???

I am lucky.  Yes, I am.  I know that and can say that a thousand times over.  For I was born to parents who gave me the best of everything even though their lives were not so comfortable.  They have always got me what I needed and given me the best of education(my parents had to pay a heavy price for the donation to be paid in my school early in the 1970s and this when they were just starting their life).  They have brought me up to be an independent woman who knows to fight for what is right and say stop when someone goes beyond limits of endurance.  More than that, they have taught me to believe and fight which is the greatest gift any parent can give.

I always believe, that my birth was just a matter of chance, a matter of seconds.  I am a thousand times lucky because I was not fated to be a daily wage labourer, a manual scavenger or in any of those professions where  lives are worth nothing in this country, where you are treated like shit.  And they are also like me, two hands, two legs, eyes, ear

Manual scavenging is the most humiliating and degrading of all professions I can think of.  It is still prevalent in India in a few states like Bihar, UP and Jharkand.  What is such a life ?  Even an animal has more dignity to its life, don't you think ? 

Reading about the law to be passed, I wonder when this country will really attain glory, in the real sense.  Here, the rich are getting richer and the poor poorer.  It is a matter of pride that despite so many suicides by farmers and weavers, you don't hear of one farmer or weaver taking to killing or looting or ransom.  That is I think where a real Indian is.  That is the heart and soul of this great country where even in abject poverty, a human being thinks of right and wrong.  And I hope I can live up to such an ideal, me being just an ordinary human being.  For it requires strength and courage of the mind to be that. 

But still, I am lucky, for I have the chance, the opportunity to do something.  And there are dreams of doing something small, something consequential, of giving back atleast part of what I got.  Working towards that dream.