She meekly regards the brutal reins of her boss everyday. She has to work fingers to bone to earn her living. Making a fire as usual she tosses firewood in the mud-pasted hearth under the tin-jutted portion of a house set for ordinary hotel nearby the ring road. Her hands and feet have deep cracks canalized conspicuously which have to sustain the piercing cold and biting fog of winter. That she wears thin clothes, has no sneakers, she quivers persistently and keeps warming squatting close-by the fire place. Her glum eyes, untidy hair dangling some bunches down and everything she looks reflects that she is deprived of parental love and affection. She doesn’t speak, can’t react but looks at the commoners occasionally, offers a haphazard smile; her fate she bears is appalling but appealing enough rhetorically. She must be of late childhood roughly. She glances at the boss off and on habitually waiting for the next burst of curse that is sure to be hurled at. The boss, who is a giant, has densely sported moustache, warring eyes and vicious mouth, stares at her, growls, shouts, nags, darts and commands his embargoes as if he wants to devour her in a jiffy. The lass doesn’t mind at all but keeps on washing pots and pans peacefully.

The folks who enjoy light moments in a Bakery next to the hotel are shattered by the ugly sight and so is this eyewitness. Whosoever happens to listen to the foul-mouthed boss can’t stay unruffled, looks at him once disgustingly and walks away in no time as they fail to succumb to be slashed by his denigratory words.

So many in destitution and hapless urchins work as bonded labor squandering their life pathetically. But they are turned blind eyes and deaf ear by the scores of organizations working in this field, which are donated ransom monetary but don’t heed to rescue these helpless. Young children working as khalasi, collecting garbage as scavengers, begging elsewhere, wandering in the streets, pestering Caucasians are not less, commonly seen here around. But God knows what the heck these so-called saviors are doing!

Her pathos and misery foils any sane being except the cruel despot standing next to her. The road ahead of her life is scary, but damn it, she doesn’t fear longing for a life!

To my surprise, she gets replaced there the very next day.