We have shifted to a new house 6 months back. I was out of my home during this shifting process, and last month itself I came back to visit my home.
The new home is in a less populated area of my city, and in the backside of my house, there is a huge barren ground, eventually used for dumping garbage.
Yesterday evening I was at the rooftop of my house and looking towards the ground with no purpose. I saw a young boy of 5-6 year old, was picking polythene bags from garbage heaps. He was accompanied by another young girl who was around 4-5 year old, and she too was picking polythene bags. After 10 minutes the boy took a small dirty piece of cloth, and emptied a tube of a glue (perhaps quickfix/bonefix) on it. He smeared the glue well on the whole cloth, and then rubbed it vigorously. Then he folded the cloth in form of a small ball, put it on his open mouth, and started pulling hard. After some time, the young girl took the cloth-ball from his hand, and she too started pulling. At first I couldn't understand what was happening, then all of sudden I realized “Oh my God! They are sniffing glue!!”
I had read about glue sniffing before but it was the first time I was witnessing someone doing that. After I realized that those kids were sniffing glue, I was shocked and upset. Great turmoil started in my mind. I was socked because those kids were really very small. I was upset because it was the first time I saw someone doing that, and I didn't know what to do about that?
Later I talked to my mother about the incident. She told me that this is very common in this place. Many a times story about this published in local newspapers, but nothing done afterwards.
This is something very sad that children at this tender age are getting addicted to glue sniffing. They don't even know what they are doing and before they know something, it's too late for them........ Poverty is like black-hole. It brings lots of associated problems like this and it's really hard to break this cycle of poverty. I wish those children were not born in a poor family. I wish if they were going school instead of picking polythene bags from garbage...Lord! please help my country....Lord! please help these children!
