Because fairy tales are for the poor too...

This is a story about one of those life-changing experiences. It does not have an impressive beginning, nor does it contain language that is so gripping it wins me accolades from all corners. I am angry with you. I want to accuse you something that has been on my mind. I don’t know how to say it, and so I will build a story that conveys what is on my mind. It did not happen to me but I am pretending it did. Because that is the way my mind works.

I go to visit my younger sister at her school during their annual day celebrations. It is a nice, little place with an impressive academic record. The function is almost over and my sister is showing me around. I feel a wave of nostalgia sweep over me as I recall my school days, when my sister nudges and points at a boy sitting near the main gate of the school. “That’s Manoj”, she declares in a tone that explorers would use while displaying a previously unknown species of something. I look at a lanky boy whom I would have passed as a helper at school, had he not been wearing the school uniform. ”He is in my class. He is almost seventeen and he is an orphan. He lives at the orphanage nearby and nobody’s friends with him. He does not know what an I-pod is”, she informs me in the same ‘thou-art-beholding-an-unusual-phenomenon’ tone, and scuttles off to talk to her friends.My sister is in the seventh standard, and at 14, the teenage hormones and the cruelties associated with it are beginning to show.

If I have to pin point the exact life-changing moment I spoke of earlier, this would be it.

I keep looking at the boy for a while and then call him over.

Now I’m not the kind of person who feels compassion for the under-privileged, or fights for their cause. That does not mean that I am cruel- I am selfish, just like you are. Before you boil yourself into a rage, let me move on with my story. The explanations and arguments can come later.

I have never spoken with any stranger before, but somehow at that moment I am sure of myself and know I will be able to talk to him, although I have no clue why I have called him. I introduce myself when he comes over and ask about him. He repeats what my sister had said about him- that he is an orphan and stays at a child relief center. He had been taken from the streets by a social activist when he was seven, and has stayed at the orphanage ever since. The activist taught him how to read and write and he could speak English fairly well. He worked hard at studies, and so this year he was granted admission in the 7th standard.

This is highly improbable, and I realize that. There is no mention of who paid the fees, and I realize that too.But this is my story, and I choose to endow Manoj with extra-ordinary brains and extra-extra-ordinary luck. Hell, fairy tales are for the poor too. I will mention the brains later as well- as a part of my story- because that’s how they write it in stories.

I only speak with him for a little while but towards the end of our dialogue, feel as protective of him as I did for my naïve, spoilt sister. I promise him I will visit at the orphanage, for the schools are closing down for the month long winter vacations. And visit him I do, more than once. Over the month long winter break; I get to know him better. He speaks of his interests and I help him with his lessons. He has good brains. He is bad at computers but that was because he could not practice the things mentioned in the textbooks, so I take my laptop and he learns quickly.

Now will begin the serious part so read carefully because most of it will be directed at you.

Towards the end of the vacation, I notice something is bothering Manoj. On my probing he reveals that he does not wish to go to back to school because he feels left out, which of course is true. Most students treat him like they are so much better than him. Those who did talk to him, do so only out of sympathy- the way you would pet a stray dog.
He is angry then and his eyes reflect the pinch of injustice that he feels in his heart. “I will not go back to school”, he declares in a tone that suggests that I will risk my life if I dare contradict him. “I will live on the streets for the rest of my life but I will not go back.”

But of course I contradict him and make him go back. And not because I am an angel from up above, no. But because fairy tales are for the poor too.And what I will say to him is not just for him; it’s for you too.

“You have to go back to school. Not because you have had this opportunity but because this is your right. The fact you don’t belong to a wealthy family, and don’t have parents does not make you inferior to them. They did not do anything to deserve the luxury, and you did nothing to deserve the hardships. It could easily have been the other way round. They have been gifted a good life. You haven’t. And so you will fight for it. Everybody likes to believe they are the most unfortunate in this world of ill fated. They will cry because they can’t go to the late night party with their friends, or because the one they loved ditched them. They feel they are the incarnation of tragedy because they don’t get along with their parents, or because they are fat. They keep looking over the other side, wishing they weren’t so miserable, wishing they weren’t so unlucky. They don’t see real sadness, real pain, real struggle. They don’t see people who don’t have parents to fight with, or who cannot afford the luxury of putting on weight because you need food for that. Even you, who are cribbing about how bad it has been, don’t you see it could be so much worse? You have this chance that nobody in their wildest dreams would get. Yet you worry about what others think of you? People don’t have time for you or anybody else- they are too busy feeling sorry for them. They are all selfish, always wanting more; never realizing what they already have is more than they need. And so expecting them to share and take what is enough for them is as crazy as suggesting this to them.So you stop feeling sorry for yourself. You life is tough, face it, don’t cry rivers over it. They are stupid, not you...”

That is the end of my story. You can extend it and talk about how I meet him 10years hence and he is working in an MNC and living happily. You can have him married, even to my sister, I wouldn’t care- partly because I don’t have a sister. As I said, what is important is you understand what I am trying to tell you. You could have been someone in an orphanage, and chances are you would have not been given the chance I gave Manoj.
Because the fact remains that you have done nothing for people who aren’t as lucky. And everybody is like you. Fairy tales don’t happen, you have to make them happen.