BONFIRE OF KNOWLEDGE

 Farook the rag picker emptied his humongous sack at the scrap dealer’s shed. He sorted the plastic detritus from the rusting pieces of metal and waste paper into different heaps and waited for his meagre payment by the dealer. Twelve-year-old Farook was tired after the long day, picking up junk and litter all day in his designated locality. He counted himself lucky not to been bitten by stray dogs or hit by tramps that used to compete with him at scavenging the piles of trash.  

As usual, he had concealed a book inside his ill-fitting clothes for himself. This habit was growing on fast after he had met the elder Zarina at the Rohingya refugee camp. Zarina had once been to school and could read and tell him the stories in the books. After pocketing his money, Farook ran pell-mell to the refugee camp on the outskirts of the town beside the stinking garbage dump. All the ethnic migrants from the neighbouring state, had been confined to this designated area only. It was only after strict profiling and labeling by the military police that able-bodied outcasts were allowed to go out to work in the day hours. Farook felt lucky to be one of those who were permitted to venture out for daily day work.

Hastily gulping down the community kitchen cooked khichidi with suspicious looking scraps of meat and rotten vegetables floating in the gruel, Farook went looking for his camp friend and fellow dreamer Zarina. Together they would spend hours warming their hands on a makeshift fire while the older girl narrated tales and news she read in the books and magazines which the hungry rag picker had brought in. Animated conversation followed and their imagination took flight in the absence of cell phones and television. 

Even though they were in the worst of times, being separated from their families, facing daily abuse and insults by the guards the young boy girl duo were transported to a magical place as soon as they immersed themselves in their discussions triggered by new bursts of knowledge that the books and magazines showered on them.

Indeed, it is true that the hell of darkness can never stop the hunger of the heart and the light of learning from touching the true seekers of knowledge.