Bitter Reality of Social Workers

Riti was walking down the dirty alleys, finding them as heavy as she always found them. Never had she felt this strange, walking down these ways. A look at all the beaming faces peeping out of their homes to welcome her was her Albatross. This was what she had always wanted to do: work with the people who perhaps mattered the most to her! Or perhaps who Riti believed, mattered the most to her!

It was never easy to convince most why she wanted to be in the city and work in the slums and the people there…But she had to come back to the city, which had made her what she was! Riti, the social worker wanted to change their lives, not realizing that she did not have it in her to change realities of majority of the population, residing in slums. Riti had dreamt of brighter skies, smiling faces, a beautiful world where people get what they deserve…without having to fight for their rights. What she did not know, however was that she did not have it in her to realize her dreams.

And yet, this was perhaps the last time she was walking down these alleyways. This was her last assignment – she would have to document SPECIAL CASES. Each individual was a special case. An achievement, a mental boost for so-called social workers and activists who claim to change lives! The work ethics had taught Riti to empathize! EMPATHY!!! Empathize with the woman, all of 20, who is bearing her 4th child? Or empathize with the child who spends all his day, playing near the gutter with the dirtiest of animals? Or maybe empathize with the parents who live by the dirty drainage canals and yet nurture the impossible dream of educating their children? Or perhaps empathize with the teenager who earns his daily bread by selling stolen vegetables on the railway platform?

And still she hoped that one day the picture will change, the way they do in movies…in books…after all they said, “When you want something, all universe conspires in helping you to achieve it”.

But reality was a far cry! She had fought hard, she thought…but perhaps it was way beyond repair! Perhaps the world and all the people had become far more insensitive that Riti had expected them to be! Failed expectations almost always wreak havoc…and Riti Roy was no exception! Disillusioned, Devastated, Demotivated…she could use all the words in the dictionary to justify her escapism! It was always easy to say, “I could take it no longer”…but how about saying, “I want to see the end of this no matter what”?  And she was not an exception! Neither did she have it in her to change the world…