ੲਿਹਨਾਂ ਬੱਚਿਆਂ ਦੇ ਮਾਪੇ ਖੁਦਕੁਸ਼ੀ ਕਰਗੇ ਗਰੀਬੀ ਕਰਕੇ...
ਹੁਣ ਕੌਣ ਸਾਂਭੂ ੲਿਹਨਾਂ ਨੂੰ..?

Tribune News Service

Maur (Sangrur), january 17

The only display item in the two-room house of Satguru Singh and his wife Rani Kaur is their wedding photograph — he in a yellow turban and she sporting a smile in her maroon suit. The picture bears a date: May 25, 2015. That’s the day both committed suicide.

Located on National Highway 71, Maur is famous for being the village of Jeona Maur, the ‘Robin Hood’ bandit. Maur ought to be infamous for what drove Satguru, a brick-kiln labourer, and Rani to give up, leaving three children behind — two school dropout girls and their 12-year-old brother.

Their kitchen now runs on ration provided by neighbours, but an unsettling vibe has taken hold of the house: that of hopelessness.

The house narrates the story of how the so-called ‘development’ — symbolised by widening highways and bigger SUVs — pushes the poor into corners so dark that some are simply unable to carry on. How, the marginalised are so effortlessly and clinically pushed out of the social and economic margins.