Little Sonu lost his fight with life after spending 4 days at the bottom of the borewell. And now the blame game has begun. There cannot be a difference of opinion that the people who dug the borewell and left it open are the primary culprits. But what maddens me most in such instances is that the parents of such children don’t get reprimanded solely because they are the victims in these situations. Wasn’t it sheer callousness not to keep an eye on a 2-year old? I refuse to accept the much-touted excuse that they were poor and probably had to give more attention to earning their bread-and-butter than to their child. Because my hard cold answer to this excuse is that if earning their bread-and-butter is more important then they should not have thought about having a child. It’s simple really – you don’t have a right to be a parent if you cannot look after your child and ensure his/her safety. Sadly, no one thinks along these lines.

It’s clear that no lessons were learnt from the “Prince” episode so I guess it’s hopeless to expect that any concrete measures will be taken to avoid the repeatition of this sad incident. As I have said before on this blog, not much premium is placed on human lives. Afterall, we seem to be having about a billion of them :-(