Freedom with Hunger (674 words)

 

The dusty road cut through a nameless town in the heart of Madhya Pradesh. As a travelling sales representative, I was used to long journeys and short halts. That afternoon, weary and hungry, my junior and I stopped at a sweet shop that looked larger than the rest.

We ordered aloo parotta with curd. Soon, a boy appeared with two plates and tall glasses of water. He was no more than thirteen, frail, with sunken cheeks, his skin stretched tight over bone. His eyes were swollen, one ringed with the shadow of a recent beating. He lingered near our table but was silent. 

In Tamil, I whispered to my colleague, “This boy is being ill-treated. Look at his eye.”

The boy startled. In broken Tamil, he asked, “Are you from Tamil Nadu?”

“Yes,” I said, surprised. “How did you come here? What happened to you?”

Before he could answer, a coarse voice boomed. “Hey, Chotu! Stop talking! Take this chai!” The shop owner glared, and the boy scurried away. But as he passed, he murmured, “I am a slave here.”

Something inside me alerted. I ordered more kachoris, then lassi, just to keep him coming back. When he placed the glasses before us, I whispered, “Come outside later. We’ll wait in a blue Maruti car. Find an excuse.” He gave the faintest nod.

Later, he slipped into the car, glancing around like a hunted animal. In halting words, between sobs, his story spilt out.

His name was Vadivel. His parents had been lured from Tamil Nadu with the promise of good work, given ten thousand rupees as an advance to clear village debts. But when they arrived, they were trapped in a quarry. The loan, inflated with usurious interest, kept them in bondage. Wages were swallowed whole. They lived on scraps and exhaustion.

His mother, frail and coughing from the dust, died without medicine. His sister, only thirteen, was preyed upon by the quarry owner; shame and despair drove her to the well. His father, broken by grief and chest pain, collapsed one day on the rocks and never rose again.

Vadivel was shifted to the sweet shop. From four in the morning till midnight, he worked without pay. He was beaten for mistakes, watched by the owner’s men, and never free.

When I asked if he wanted to escape, his eyes lit up for the first time. We drove off with the windows drawn and by evening reached Bhopal. There, he spoke of his wish: to go to Chennai, to find work in a hotel, to build a new life.

I bought him clothes, a train ticket, and pressed three hundred rupees into his hand. “Chennai is vast and dangerous,” I warned. “Beware of bad company. Protect your freedom.” He left with a smile. I left with hope.

Months passed, and I had forgotten him.

On a trip to Madurai, I stopped in Chennai and visited my brother, a police inspector. In his station, as his wife was away. A boy sat in handcuffs, head bowed, shrinking from the constables’ blows. My brother ordered him taken aside. As they dragged him away, I caught his face.

"Vadivel!” I gasped.

At the sound of his name, he collapsed at my feet, weeping.

“Sir,” he sobbed, “you warned me. But I had no work. The money was gone. No one helped me. I begged; I starved. And one day, I stole a purse. I was caught. The slavery with food was better than freedom with hunger. I wish I had never left.”

My throat tightened. I told my brother the boy’s story. Moved, he promised to take Vadivel into his home, to give him a chance at something better. The case was dropped, being his first offence and the stolen purse was recovered.

Yet Vadivel’s words clung to me long after I left the station:

Slavery with food is better than freedom with hunger.

And I wondered, with a heaviness I could not shake, what kind of world we had built for children like him.