RAGI-the little angel

Ragi was only 8 years when her father suffering from TB, she never knows him very closely but she remembers his skinny caged body, recurrent coughing, breathlessness and sunken eyes. Her mother cautioned her not to go near him. They come from the BPL category. They are somehow managing with both ends meal. Her mother works for Sharma uncle who lives in a society 2kms away from their hutments and she helps her.

Mrs Sharma was pregnant and delivery was due in one and half month approximately. Though both are nice people, but Ragi is afraid of them as she has seen them tensed and arguing off and on. So she stays away from them just hang with her mother and pretends to help her as much as she can.

Her mother was working in other 2 houses also, as wages from one house were not sufficient to make their basic needs and her father treatment as well. We here took the Sharma family example for Ragi generational trauma, childhood mis-parenting or maltreatment as this story related to them only.  

One day her mother got her right hand cut by knife and she got 3 stiches. She was unable to do utensils and chapatti making so she instructed Ragi to do that under her supervision. Though Ragi was not new to this job as she observed her mother closely doing all such work, she managed to do it (not that perfectly) with some difficulty standing on a chauki. Mrs Sharma was continuously cautioning her mother to be careful. But it is her ill luck, the bowl of the pure ghee while smearing chapatti, fell down

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with a bang. Mr Sharma came all of a sudden in the kitchen to fetch a glass of water for his wife and his foot slipped on the fallen pure ghee and he fell on the floor with a thunder and broken his arm. All happened in a chain of sequence so fast, that no one imagined either what has happened or how to save it.

When Mr Sharma and Mrs Sharma and Ragi’s mother realized what happened it was very late. Now the sky fallen of the little Ragi. Sharma’s couple shouting on Ragi, her mother protecting her from their shouting. She was stunned and spell bound and started crying. In the mean time Mrs Sharma called neighbors to see what happened to Mr Sharma’s arm and when he declared that it is broken they started cursing little Ragi and her mother. They took him to the hospital his arm was plastered.

As per child labour rules all children below the age of 14 are protected for any domestic or industrial labour.

Mrs Sharma was aware. So after some time she kept calm but the impact of this episode was so strong on her childish heart and brain was strong. She was under privileged from many aspect, 1 her father is sick not earning, 2 she is not going school because of their family conditions, 3 she had to work with her mother for making both ends meal, 4 Mrs Sharma scolds her regularly. So she remains terrified from her and doesn’t want to come to her home. Approximately 23% urban and 10 % rural children specifically girl child faces this trauma in India.