The Price of Innocence: Counting Coins, Counting Lost Childhoods

As the sun set over the bustling streets of Ferozepur, five little hands rested on a table outside a snack vendor’s stall. Their tiny fingers sorted through crumpled notes and scattered coins, the day’s earnings from pleading to passersby, tapping on car windows, and tugging at the sleeves of hurried pedestrians.

Pari, in her faded pink shirt, counted with determination, while Soni, in a black coat, looked around with wide, curious eyes. Rani, wrapped in a tattered jacket, smoothed out a ten-rupee note, her chapped lips curling into a faint smile. Each of them, barely ten years old, had collected around Rs. 200—money that would soon disappear into the hands of parents waiting at home.

They had never truly seen the inside of a school. Education, a dream meant for others, seemed out of reach in a world where survival came first. Could population control or resource allocation change their fate? Or was the system itself failing them?

Frankly speaking, as I watched the vendor exchange their coins for high-denomination notes, a thought lingered—how long before they stop counting coins and start counting lost dreams?