A Question of Responsibility!

Mom is the best cook in the world! Yes, my Mom is. But I do go to the kitchen to cook and get coffee. In the mornings, while making coffee I often look outside the kitchen window. During these times I have seen a cloth hung on the underside of the grills of a window on the ground floor of the building adjacent to ours. The cloth is hung in such a way that a child can be placed inside it like a small cloth swing.

3-4 times in the last week, when I go to make coffee in the morning, I have seen the cloth swinging in all directions, with an infant inside crying. This child is of the trash picker working in our area. The woman always leaves her child inside this cloth, while working. Fine, she has work to do, without which she won’t be able to fill her belly. But, why leave the child crying?

I would like to draw your attention to Our Lady of Intolerance as well at this moment. This neighbor of ours, initially when we had shifted to this flat, wanted me to babysit her 2 children and allow her old mother-in-law to sit in our home, for the whole day, for free. She also expected me to leave my work as a senior journalist and take tuitions for her children for free during the whole day. And she and her husband wanted to have a gala time in the meanwhile. If something had happened to the old lady in our home, who would be responsible?

Also the family from a different religion, whose father-figure, who is at least 30 years older than me and has an eye (read bad) on me, has a differently-abled son. I will still call him differently abled with respect because it is not his fault. This family insisted that I teach him English, because my English according to them is impeccable. The problem with him was he would not understand what I told him. Mom, who has more experience handling such kids, had to intervene and they did not want Mom to teach him because she is old! Besides, he would come to our home at odd times, very inconveniently.

I wonder why some people want to shed their responsibilities and throw it on other people’s shoulders. I feel if you do not want to have such responsibilities, you do not have the right to have children at all. I even would go further that you do not have the right to go through the process that ends in pregnancy. I know what I am talking about. I am talking about sex, with which comes a lot of responsibility. But who cares?