The saddest thing I’ve seen

The saddest thing I've seen I saw in the town of Jhunjhunu in Rajasthan. I was standing in the main street, near the bus station and at the intersection of several small roads with this big one. A friend and I had come out to buy some things from one of the general stores that line this busy street and we were standing just under the awning of one particular store on the corner of one of the small roads. In front of us were shelves of toothpaste, shampoo and soap; at our feet were Hessian bags filled with pulses, rice and dried red chillies. While we stood and waited for one of the shop boys to find what we had asked for, a group of four or five ragged, dishevelled boys and girls, all about six or seven years old, their hair matted and dirty, came wandering past. We had passed them earlier on the side road and they had been scavenging for rubbish: plastic bags, drinks bottles and other refuge. They were probably from a community of rag pickers. They didn't make much noise but were talking to one another in snatches of conversation as small children do, taking things off each other and generally going about what they were doing in a child-like way. When they had already passed the shop in front of which we stood, one of the shop boys, younger than the others working there, suddenly jumped into life and ran out onto the street to shout at them to come back. And around the corner they came, looking expectantly into the shadow under the awning to see what they were being given. The boy who had ran out to call the children back had gone into the depths of the store to fish something out and now reappeared with a cardboard box full of used packaging, plastic bags and clear plastic wrap. He held this aloft as he squeezed past us and the piled bags of dried goods on the floor, and stepped just beyond the awning's shadow to upend the box onto the floor. As the bags and wrapping fell and scattered onto the dusty ground the small group of children, whose eyes had lit up at the sight of the box overflowing with rubbish, tumbled forward in a scrambling dash to grab with both hands the unwanted packaging at their feet. As they did so the shop boy broke into a peal of laughter and his delight spread to the rest of the workers in the store, who peered past us with big grins to see the drama of desperation playing out on the ground in front of their shop. The boy, perhaps seven or eight years older than the children scrambling on the ground, looked back at his colleagues and cracked some comment to make them break into brief laughter too. The shop workers were not well off, but the simple fact of their having jobs meant they could find simple amusement in the misery of these children who were clearly in a much worse position. This was a snapshot of mankind's ugliness that left me feeling sick. I hope it's the saddest thing I ever see.