Is it too late? Think!

An article issued in public interest, by MathiRaj

I mean it when I say I am sitting and writing this article at half past one in the morning, because something made me think a lot, I mean, A LOT! So, I came across a few news articles. More than to make me think, it has been haunting me.

In the village of Vadamangalam, near Sriperambathur, a daily wage worker named Arumugam hung one of his three children and tied his two other children and pushed them into a well and committed suicide. No, don’t judge him quickly.

We the ones reading this article, we are the lucky one percent of Indian population. We can only imagine what must have gone on in Arumugam’s mind to drive him to such a heart-wrenching decision.

Just imagine, deprived of food you can life for a month maximum. Deprived of water, three days maximum. Deprived of oxygen, three minutes maximum. But deprived of hope, not even three seconds, no. That was what Arumugam must have had gone through, no hope of future.

Let us keep aside our feelings and emotions for a moment and think as purely practical and business minded. The migrant day workers were sent back to their hometowns as per their request, okay. But what was the profit from it in the bigger picture?

This pandemic has to end someday. When that day comes, to pull back and make the economy erect, will not be possible only because of economists or capitalists, but by the daily wage workers. Now that they have been sent to their hometowns, expecting them to come back and work just like the olden times is like betting on the losing horse.

I am not an economist or the CEO of an international bank, I am just a student, who feels if all the daily wage workers were credited with, say 5000 rupees in all their accounts, they would have had some hope and faith of a future. It also isn’t a loss but an investment for the government, a very cheap investment with a really high ROI (Return On Investment).

Coming to the migrant workers’ welfare, major schools and colleges could have been cleared and given for them to stay, because a roof to live under is their biggest threat. With that being done, they could have taken pretty good care of themselves.

Mistakes happen, mistakes are the first step of success. The second step of success is realizing and rectifying those mistakes. Let us now move on to the second step and not have any increase in cases like Arumugam.