Children as Pawns in a game called life.

I was in a queue at the rickshaw stand. Like all there, I was also in a hurry to reach home after the day’s work. As the queue moved a man with a child seemed to adjust his position in the queue just ahead of me. I had been preoccupied but was fairly certain that he was slipping in the queue. But yes there was also a suspicion that while in my own musings I might not have noticed him before. A lone dad with a child of around a year I think draws some sympathy. No other family members were in sight. The people in the queue who would have yelled at anyone, man or woman, who tried to break the queue also did not react. This seemed a sufficient support to my suspicion that I had not noticed the man before.

The queue proceeded slowly. Finally it was his turn. He got into a rick and signaled. Lo behold from somewhere miraculously appeared a wife and a daughter of about 9 yrs. They had not been anywhere in plain sight before. They glanced furtively at people waiting for their turn. No it was not a figment of my imagination the guilt was written all over their faces.

I was irked not only because they had broken the order but more so because they had used a child in such a fashion. They were educated folks for heavens’ sake! Well, why then do we look down upon beggars who play on the people’s emotions to earn . Some of them are actually needy and some probably have really borne the child they are lugging for sympathy. It is a universal phenomenon. Why aren’t there people in the so called developed countries who bear more and more children just for the financial support and subsidies that the government gives for the children?

Commercially too companies make use of children in ads to attract parents into buying the goods. Everything from cement to undergarments features children, who get influenced by these messages and persuade their parents to buy these commodities. Why even in some marriages we see the children being used as pawns by their parents.
Well, then I guess there is no end to it. Who is to decide whether its right or wrong and how is any one going to be able to curb it. It is human psychology. Didn’t Kunti , Mother of Pandavas In Mahabharata, try to play on her deserted son Karna’s emotions to try and protect her legitimate sons ?