Sometimes I am amazed that I can still find myself in places where when I have a headache I would not be referred to a tablet but treated with a head massage. I am also amazed that we do not even expect anything more, from people we care about, then to ask us if we have taken a medicine for our pains. We don't expect anyone to bring us a cup of brewed tea or soup. We don't expect anyone to sit and hear our woes. Its all matter of fact now! 'Oh honey do you have a headache?, I hope you took a pain killer'.
Naseem, is a six year old girl. When I met her she was sitting on the charpoi with her mother and constantly clapping but without any mirth. Her hair was cut almost to her scalp. I was told that she was a miracle child, she had been suffering from severe acute malnutrition and her family and relatives had almost given up hope that she would survive but she had proven all stats wrong and was sitting right in front of us. Physically, she was on the mend but her mental growth had been irreversibly stunted. She did not respond to any movement, any gesture or sound, her mind was somewhere else... A little boy, hardly seven, sitting on the curbside on an otherwise busy junction but at 0100AM he seemed so out of place on that dark, deserted road. As we stopped at the traffic signal, on the road perpendicular to where he was sitting, my attention was drawn to his posture. His slumped back was towards me and as I watched, two cars stopped on the lanes furthest from him. He made an ...
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