The minute breadwinner

The incessant pounding disturbs my reverie. I glance out to locate the source of the irritant and my gaze is arrested by the little girl dressed in the traditional attire of a parrot-green ghagra (long skirt) in that must once have been gaudily eye-catching. She is perhaps three feet tall, her hair, glistening with oil, slicked back in tight pigtails. She looks barely past the toddler stage, no more than five years old. It seems incongruous that she sports a pair of dark glasses. Her small hands hold a long green-and-red pole twice her height. I suddenly realize she is tightrope walking.

The noise-makers are probably her parents – the man stands by drumming up business with a semblance of rhythm, while the woman squats down on the sidewalk to hammer out her tensions on a couple of metal plates. Beside them in a wicker basket, lies another baby, seemingly quite at home with the bedlam.

They have crossed bamboo poles about ten feet apart on the concrete road and strung a rope between them more or less horizontal to the ground to rig the makeshift prop. Obviously, the question of safety does not cross their minds – there is no helmet, no safety harness to secure the child, and no safety net below to catch her should she fall. She is entirely on her own, on the ‘platform’ raised six or seven feet above. Amidst the traffic speeding by with blaring horns, she focuses on parading back and forth on the rough jute rope that must hurt her bare feet.

With one misstep she could end up with a fractured skull, broken bones, or worse. My thoughts churn in moral outrage. How dare they thus expose the girl-child to danger? The man and woman could work; it was their bounden duty as parents, wasn’t it, to protect their children? Instead, they live off their earnings. The rest of us should not encourage such behaviour by watching; we should all just walk away and force them to change their exploitative habits, I nod to myself.

But then, I do not turn away. Seriously, what chances of survival does a nomadic family really have? As an offshoot of a gypsy tribe or a circus, they are outcasts of mainstream society. With no money, and no home, they are of the faceless millions living below the poverty line. They have no skills other than what they are doing right now, and no hope of steady employment.

Attracted by sight and sound, a small crowd of curious onlookers also gathers. Passersby stop, like me fascinated by the little aerialist. I smile to think how well this totally illiterate family is able to read crowd psychology. The little girl walks to the end of the rope, turns and sits down for a moment on the fork of the bamboos. In high treble she calls out. The man reaches up to hand her two small metal pots.  Placing them on her head, she stands up to resume her walk.

It dawns that she is gradually increasing the degree of difficulty of her act - first the goggles, now the pots. Her balance is perfect as it must be. She gets to the other end and calls again. This time she is handed a pair of bright pink plastic slippers. She wears them, replaces the pots on her head, adjusts her dark glasses, and sets off once more on her promenade.

In spite of me, I am impressed. This family is not begging, nor are they stealing. They put on display what they know, and the children take quickly to that way of life to survive in harsh reality. The parents passing on their craft to their children early, schools them in street-performer roles. Were I in their place, I wonder whether I could so accept reality, discover my worth and live by it.

Certainly they count on their children to shoulder the family burden, but in a country that cannot boast of social security for all its citizens, can we really be judgemental? Would any of us spare more than a cursory glance if the man or the woman were doing the same balancing act? No, not a chance! Hence, when we ourselves have no alternatives to offer for their survival, can we really brand them guilty of the crime of child exploitation?

How is this worse than the hugely popular reality shows on TV, sponsored by big business houses, that force little children to compete against one another in beauty pageants? They learn to be 'stars', to rely on botox, sunbeds and the streetwalker’s strut to get ahead, rather than hone an honest talent. 

The disciplined courage of this minute breadwinner shames us, who take privileges for granted. The little girl scrambles down from her perch, and while the father packs up the props, she and her mother each pick up a plate and hold them out wordlessly. The onlookers willingly drop therein their appreciations for the performance. I confess I do too – the child’s efforts deserve at least a full meal for the family before they move on.