I really do hope
that I am at the end of the contest to write the most tragic, although true,
tale. This is my fourth Caudill Nominee for 2014, and aside from Ghetto Cowboy,
each is more heartrending than the last. Access to these books is rightly
important for our privileged children. They are essential for us to read in
order to see the picture of the world at large. Such novels would hopefully
provide at least an ounce of perspective to the child who declares, “I’m bored.”
Alas, I am not too terribly hopeful. The masses will continue to wind their way
to the Diary of a Wimpy Kid and Big Nate. These poignant stories can be
a hard sell to the majority of their intended audience.
Gopal is the
oldest son of an onion farmer in rural India. A young son might think that one
year’s bumper crop would guarantee next year’s planting. The laws of supply and
demand will prove him wrong. Gopal’s family never had much money to begin with,
but now the small family is not only impoverished, but also deeply in debt to
the money lenders. Baba, father, decides that the family must move to the big
city, Mumbai, to live with an uncle while working towards a better future. What
is more, the family must sneak out of their rural village without saying
goodbye to friends in order to escape the punishment of the money lenders.
Young Gopal does
not seek charity. In fact, he wants to find work to help support his family.
His uncle works hard to ensure that Gopal will have a place in school next
term. Uncle supplies clothes and notebooks. The more that is given to Gopal,
the more he feels compelled to earn his own way. When a charismatic, yet
strange young man mentions factory work, Gopal is intrigued. He doesn’t want to
lose the opportunity to help his family. Gopal takes the bait as well as a cup
of tea that is laced with a sedative.
Gopal wakes up
in the “factory.” It is a small, two story shack. The boss has an office
downstairs. There is a hole in the ceiling where a ladder can be placed.
Upstairs are five more young boys sitting at desks gluing colored beads onto
frames in a specified pattern. Gopal joins them. They work most of the day and
sleep in the same room at night. They come downstairs for tea and meals when
they have worked hard and caused no trouble. They get a bath once a week from a
bucket that they share. No one talks. No one knows anyone’s name.
Gopal, a
practiced storyteller brings a little life and laughter to the dismal group,
but the joy brings pain and punishment. The boss’s job is to keep the boys at
odds and in factions to prevent mutinies. There are beatings, lashings,
humiliations and withholding of food. Some of the boys lie to acquire rewards
as small as a cup of tea or a bite of bread. But in the end, the stories win and
they hold the small, powerless group together long enough to survive. It is an
amazing thing – the power of a name as well as the power of story.
It is stories
like these that make me want to keep my own children in sight. This is a great
book to support any discussion/education of child labor in third world countries
or the slave trade of children. It is nice that the book has a happy ending. I
am sure most stories like this one do not.
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