Heart touching birthday wishes for daughter from mother

 Whenever I find time, I try to spend most of it with my parents and learn from their life experiences. I learn a lot from them. Some times, their insights deeply surprise me. One day, I was talking to my mother and father about poor families. I said,' Mom, even if a rich person does something wrong to poor people, they still don't say anything and tolerate everything in front of them. Hearing this, my mother said,' Son, courage comes from wealth. I found my mother's words very strange - is wealth really everything? At that time, I ignored what she said.

A while later, I went to conduct research in a village of the Musahar (ST) community and other Dalit communities. Initially some people were not even ready to talk. When a few agreed and I spoke with them, I found out that many did not even own 2 Biswas of land. They have to buy everything, including flour and rice, to eat. If they don't work for a day it becomes difficult to light the stove in the evening. Yet they have accepted their life as a blessing from God and find happiness in whatever they receive.

I found there that their small children remain immersed in addiction because their environment is like that. Even cleanliness was found to be almost non existent. People from other communities do not be friended them because they lack cleanliness. I also found that they face exploitation everywhere- physically in some places and mentally in others. I observed that other people exploit their strength to get their own work done. I found most of the men working at brick kilns, while on the other hand, the women were found working in others fields. Even in todays times, I found them wandering in the jungle in search of meat, in many places situations arise where people have to drive them away from their jungle areas.

furthermore, those who work at other people's places are unable to rise their voices against them, no matter how much they abuse them; if anyone does raise their voice, it is suppressed right there. The level of education among them is also very low; in some villages, I found educated individuals, but they couldn't receive quality education due to financial weakness. Most of them are unemployed and have no knowledge of constitutional activities. When elections happen, they cast their vote wherever they are told to, and most of them give their vote in exchange for money because they know that nothing is going to change for them anyway, so whatever they can get during election time is everything.

Parents with son

Seeing all this, I remember what my mother used to say- that courage comes from wealth. Yes I can understand that wealth alone isn't everything and multiple factors are at play, but I found a common point: wealth and environment can change a lot. I saw so much fear in them that they would hide upon seeing the police. If someone gave them good advice, they would take it badly and say,' our lives have always been passed this way. Though today, a lot of change can be seen in those communities compared to what I read in book- it was a bit different - but I got a chance to understand the ground reality from up close.

Anyway, coming back to our topic, I also noticed there that they have no desire for social competition with others; its just about earning and eating. Even if someone manages study up to the primary level, there is no money to study further. I asked an aunt, Aunty will you educate the child? she replied,' Son, where is the money? Even running the household is so difficult, whatever is destined will happen. They have left their lives to fate.

We all know there is already such a massive struggle for a single seat in higher education; who will pay attention to their circumstances? Plus they don't even have the resources or knowledge. When we, despite being so educated today, can not break free from caste discrimination, we can truly understand the state of their environment.

Although today I am trying to bring this issue to the people through the medium of the scheduled caste and scheduled tribe, this issue is some how connected to every individual who is financially or mentally weak and has to face discrimination because of being weak on financial, metal and social levels. Today we must understand that every individual should raise their voice with dignity wherever they are forced to bow down before others. Our country become self reliant only through the participation of every individual, and when their words are listened to equally alongside those who are financially and socially strong.

We all know that when there is wealth, one runs towards education, and that is when awareness increases. And when there is education, the strength to fight the system is born, which then reduces discrimination. I would like to share some unsolved matters through a poem.

I heard that he heard everything, yet said nothing- why so?

Oh, may be he didn't see it- no, he saw everything but ignored it all.

Oh, may be he got scared? No, he wasn't scared.

perhaps he was dead. Oh, now I understand- he killed by the social system.