Since the time I have shifted to this place and settled, I have experienced this.
The lights, otherwise shining from all the windows and making me realise the existence of people around me, once turned off, create a kind of peach dark silence. Every other day, I hear a boy cry, cry out loud, yelling at someone. Neither am I able to listen to what he wants to say nor do I try to. His crying suffices…
To start this thought trail in me, no matter how much I try to let go of it. Is he living with his parents or someone? Yes. Does living with people other than his parents justify his cry?
It can be his parents beating him up too. Is it okay to beat kids? Sometimes?
Really though? How can violence be justified? However badly I want to take that child in my arms and comfort him, I know I can’t, and I won’t. What stops me? Is it their personal matter? Even the child may not expect anyone to intervene and even if someone does, for how long will they continue intervening?
It also leaves me wondering about the kind of adult this child would become. Would he beat his children, too? What memories will he have from his childhood? Will they be that of him getting beaten up?
Does he cry himself to sleep every night or does his parent take him close and talk to him nicely before letting him be alone to sleep? If a parent lets their child cry themselves to sleep every other day, why did they even bring him into this world? Were they not prepared? And even if they were, are there issues that cannot be solved by talking and listening?
Listening to his cry makes my heart cry in vain. I feel sorry for him and his parents. Who knows, it might not even be the case. Maybe the child getting beaten up is indeed justified. And all this might be just me, overthinking. However, thoughts know no end.
Don’t the neighbours ever feel the need to ask? Do his friends tease him the next day: “We heard your father yelling at you”?
I am not a parent, and neither do I know how to parent someone. But somewhere, I just don’t feel it right. Every other day, for months.
Note: The article was originally published here.