The flag-seller at the signal…

I know the knock on the car window will come. I will be at a signal. Waiting for the light to turn green. Which gives enough time for the beggar child to approach me with a sales pitch. She doesn’t have to say anything. And she won’t, because she knows I won’t hear her inside the car with my music on. Besides, what she’s hawking does not need any selling technique. Instead, she will press a tear-streaked face and grubby palms on my car window. Leaving stains. Silently begging me to make a sale with dark appealing eyes and a toothy grin. She’s at an age when she ought to have been at school. Or playing at home with a Barbie. But she’s at a traffic signal. Selling the national flag for Independence Day. Knocking on car windows like her life depends on the few minutes before the lights change.

I will look into those melting eyes and know how much she cries. And how she’s struggling to stay strong when nothing is right and everything in her little world is wrong. Sitting in the shade watching her toil will be her handler. A petty thief and drug addict usually turn out little girls and boys to beg at signals after beating them and maiming them and making them handicapped for life. Failure to get him the target of alms set out for each child will result in a merciless beating at night. This is the truth about India. Child begging is an organized crime. But the authority will not do anything about it. I will roll down my window and buy a flag. Not because the Prime Minister wants every Indian household to unfurl the tricolor on our 75th Independence Day next week. But because my heart breaks for the little girl.

#tiranga #india #jaihind #indianflag #bharat #hindustan #independenceday #vandematram #August15 #freedom #tricolour

About Mark Manuel

The above thoughts/content has been proudly copied from the wall of Sir Mark Manuel. Being interviewing almost every role model of this country and going stronger each day. Mark Manuel is a respected Mumbai editor, writer, and columnist.

With over three decades of journalism in leading publications. This includes the Free Press Journal, Times, Dainik Bhaskar, Mid-Day, and Afternoon. He is famous for his brilliant pen interviews. He himself is a TEDx speaker.

Further

His interviews have featured in several leading media houses. They include the Hindustan Times, Huffington Post, BBC, and Network 18. Almost every famous person has been interviewed by him in the country from Mother Teresa to Muhammad Ali. His first book is just out. It’s titled Moryaa Re! It is a crime thriller that is perhaps the country’s first police procedural. He began his career covering crime. And in a tribute to his experience and knowledge of this beat.

Several distinguished officers of the Mumbai Police and its Crime Branch collaborated with him to make this book possible. Amitabh Bachchan wrote the forward in a statement of friendship for Mark Manuel and admiration for his work.

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