Hope for a better future

Raju hurried to and fro, bringing food to the customers. Everyone was busy with their food and the concerns of their lives. No one paid attention to his big luminous eyes, his small dirty hands and his small bare feet that played a staccato on the floor with his constant rushing around. It was always this busy in the morning. A woman in the corner looked up from her coffee cup and noticed the “little hard working man”. Her eyes followed his every movement. She tried to imagine Raju in a school uniform. Would he have made a great student or an average one? What did he want to be when he grew up? What were his hopes and wishes; his most secret desires? And then her mind wandered to other mundane thoughts…like the shopping list in her bag and all the grocery that she had to buy, and like every other person their accepted the fact that Raju was where he was destined to be…or so she thought. She didn’t understand that Raju did think of school, of studying, of doing something worthwhile and being someone some day. The government in recent times had launched such wonderful programs which could fulfill his dream, but this society…would it let him?