Blame it on illiteracy or more correctly on poverty. The twelve year old rag picker in Jaipur whose only concern must have been to earn enough to satisfy her hunger on day to day basis has one additional problem, her one day old daughter.

The poor girl (poor in every sense materialistic or otherwise) simply did not have any clue that she could be pregnant, leave aside the medicare one is supposed to receive when one is expecting.

Even her family was in dark about her condition, apparently nothing was different, it was only day before when she complained of stomach ache and gave birth to her daughter on the roadside and her parents came to know. She was brought to the ‘Mahila Hospital” in an emergency ambulance from the roadside.

As per the Doctors, she is hardly 12/13 years old. Both the mother and the daughter are doing fine. As per the girl, she was married to a boy and stayed with him for 45 days a few months back, but her father says that she did stay with a boy but he is not sure whether that boy is the father of the baby girl.

The illiterate family is totally bewildered with the hospital care, the media glare, and the police. All these things are totally new for them and no, they do not have any plans for future.

This is what is known as stark and raw poverty. The whole family is so busy foraging the garbage for next meal that they have no time to even think about other things in life. Who is to be blamed for such pitiable plight, surely not the girl she is too young to know about the ways of life, the parents, again no, satisfying hunger is the only issue.

Then we as a society can be blamed because despite there being so many Government schemes and NGOs in place, still such incidences are taking place and we are totally engrossed in our own pursuits except that we will read this as shocking news item and turn over the page to you know what. Out of sight out of mind. Jai Ho!