Look closely at this picture.
What do you see?
I see hope and joy.
A brother and sister sitting on a cot on one of the streets in a leafy posh part of New Delhi (I was there this weekend - and my good friend Danny Tauro took this snap for me).
Except this family is not posh.
What do they do for a living?
Well, the clues are all around the kids.
Several cloth bags - full of clothes - share the cot with them. Behind them is a table with a cloth on it... and some more piles of clothes. And yes, an old iron.
Another iron shows up in the right hand side of the picture. It is open and you can look in to see what it is fed with. Charcoal. A small pile of charcoal waits to be burned down to embers - so that the ironing can begin.
This is a family who irons clothes for the folks in the big houses around them. They have made this part of the street their work place. Maybe even their sleeping place. Certainly their living place.
They do not have enough money (or connections) to get electricity where they are. So they use charcoal to get their irons hot enough to press the clothes of the sahibs and memsahibs.
And on a hot Saturday afternoon, we walked by these two kids totally absorbed in their books. Nice new school text books. Both poring over them.
Without a camera, I clicked the scene in my mind as we walked by.
Then I asked Danny to go back and get a shot using his mobile phone.
This is what he got. By the time Danny went back the boy was looking into the girl's book and telling her something.
His face has a lovely smile on it. Her face looks earnestly at what he is pointing out.
It strikes me as a picture of hope.
Two kids reading. Expanding their horizons. Their school bags open behind them. Stepping into a world that their parents have probably hardly entered.
So much can be done. So many destinies can be shaped.
What do you see?
I see hope and joy.
A brother and sister sitting on a cot on one of the streets in a leafy posh part of New Delhi (I was there this weekend - and my good friend Danny Tauro took this snap for me).
Except this family is not posh.
What do they do for a living?Well, the clues are all around the kids.
Several cloth bags - full of clothes - share the cot with them. Behind them is a table with a cloth on it... and some more piles of clothes. And yes, an old iron.
Another iron shows up in the right hand side of the picture. It is open and you can look in to see what it is fed with. Charcoal. A small pile of charcoal waits to be burned down to embers - so that the ironing can begin.
This is a family who irons clothes for the folks in the big houses around them. They have made this part of the street their work place. Maybe even their sleeping place. Certainly their living place.
They do not have enough money (or connections) to get electricity where they are. So they use charcoal to get their irons hot enough to press the clothes of the sahibs and memsahibs.
And on a hot Saturday afternoon, we walked by these two kids totally absorbed in their books. Nice new school text books. Both poring over them.
Without a camera, I clicked the scene in my mind as we walked by.
Then I asked Danny to go back and get a shot using his mobile phone.
This is what he got. By the time Danny went back the boy was looking into the girl's book and telling her something.
His face has a lovely smile on it. Her face looks earnestly at what he is pointing out.
It strikes me as a picture of hope.
Two kids reading. Expanding their horizons. Their school bags open behind them. Stepping into a world that their parents have probably hardly entered.
So much can be done. So many destinies can be shaped.
What a great picture and the message it conveys is so striking. Thanks for sharing this glimmer of hope in what seems often like an unattainable task.
ReplyDeleteI recognized them before I read,... It's a remarkable family! They seem to be always all smiles and very polite. The parents have more clothes to iron than any of the other ironing people in the street, because of the quality of their work, I assume. They come early morning and work till sundown ever since we have seen them first nearly 10 years ago.
ReplyDeleteThanks gentle friends! We unvieled a picture this morning at JSK which Stefan and Neeru have gifted JSK (look for it in the next post) and asked ourselves - where would Jesus be if He were born in the poverty of today's India instead of the poverty of Israel 2 millenia ago... One thing is clear - that despite his poverty, Jesus grew in stature and wisdom, and in favour of God and man (Luke 2.52)
ReplyDeleteAmazing picture and well written. Thanks Andi enjoyed it.
ReplyDeleteAlways enjoy reading your blog Andi. many blessings in JESUS!
ReplyDelete