Children of the light

There are horrific tales of child abuse coming out of the north of India these days. Stories of children kidnapped and sexually abused and killed and cannibalised. Body parts and decaying clothes found buried in the garden or rotting in the gutter. Surgical supplies, disinfectants and deodorisers added to the bone-chilling story of nightmarish death. The parents have searched for their children in vain, to be told many days, even years later that they had died horrifically, in a manner that is the stuff of snuff films that are beyond disgusting.

The children that vanished belonged to people – to mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, other relatives, homes, families…while none were especially wealthy or privileged, they all were, in some way, treasured and missed. To find them – or what remains – in such a devastating manner not only condemns the already-beleaguered image of the Indian police, but also the people who did this to them, trial by a jury of media watchers, before the law or justice can get them punished.

Anyone who hurts a child – and there are so many of them all over the world – should be made to suffer as much as possible. While I will not spout sappy sentimentality about how children are little flowers that should be nurtured, I think that if we want a future with any sort of light and hope, young people should be kept safe, loved, cherished.

Perhaps my first and only real experience in dealing with a child was when I met the very young daughter of a close friend of mine. She was just over two years old at the time and we became friends almost instantly. She was my bodyguard as much as I was hers – she would protect me against people (particularly men) getting too friendly at parties or at the mall or grocery store and I was her “aunty”, buying her pink lace negligees and bright red roller skates and teaching her how to use make-up for the time when she was old enough to use it. She was my sweetie, my baby, my pet, something I could play with and enjoy and teach, but that I could return to its rightful parent once I was done. Perhaps that gave us more freedom to be ourselves and to be friends. Today that baby is grown up, in college, ready to face her own life and world. And today I am half that world away from her, not having seen her for more years that I like to remember. But the affection and the memories of the bond we once shared still lingers.

That was perhaps the best learning process of all my life – how to make sure that someone else is happier than I am with what I am to her and to myself. And it also taught me how important a child is to life – mine, hers, society and the world in general.