Look at the picture.. what do you see?
three little girls playing, the way all children that age should, three children savouring what is know as the best part of one’s life: early childhood, when others take care of your creature comforts and everyday needs, when you do not have an ounce of worry or concern…
oops I forgot to tell you this scene is from an urban slum in India… so let me reinterpret it for you..
Rabia and her twin sisters Asiya and Fatima live in a fifth floor hovel in a slum in Delhi.. They have an elder sister and no brother. When they came into the world there was no joy or happiness but they were meant to feel a burden from the moment they saw the light of day. Their father drives an auto ricshaw, their mother takes on needle work for greedy exporters who pay her a pittance, the house is unkept and unclean..the girls uncared for..
The twins now two cannot walk or even stand, they do not talk or even smile. All the medical tests done were negative, the verdict brutal: lack of love; suffer from extreme neglect.
When little Fatima is upset it is not her moma she runs to for comfort, but elder sister Rabia, barely four, as you can see in the picture. And the little four year old surrogate mother does her best to wipe off the hurt…
Now look at the picture again, do you see what I see….