Pinky: Working For A Way Out

Working for a Way Out No parent would ever wish for their child to be raised in the slums of India. No parent would ever wish for their child to have only a fifth grade education. No parent would ever wish for their child to have an abusive alcoholic as his/her life partner. No parent would wish any of these misfortunes on their child, for living in these types of situations would seem to result in nothing but misery and sorrow in one’s life. You would expect nothing but destitution and despondence. You would think that a person living in these conditions would have no chance for success, no chance for happiness. But as we have seen throughout the course of these stories about so-called “underdogs,” nothing is truly how it seems.
In the midst …show more content…
I was 11... 11! What does an 11 year old girl do in a situation like that? My parents were always there for me and then all of a sudden, they were gone and no one else was there to take care of me. My world was turned upside down.” A grief-stricken young girl, Pinky grabbed the only work she could in order to keep herself from dying of hunger: she became a domestic worker. She moved to Nasik, Maharashtra and grabbed work with the Rai family. Of all of her working experiences, Pinky says this was the worst of them all. She moved in with the Rai family and worked for almost 20 hours per day. She would get a meager salary of only 100 rupees a week. Pinky ate the leftover scraps of the Rai family’s lunches and dinners. She was not allowed to use the bathrooms; she had to bathe outside the house. Mr. Rai was a drunkard. He would come home and beat Pinky with a wooden stick if he had found anything misplaced or unclean. Despite these conditions, Pinky stayed quiet. “I had to do what I was told. I had to be quiet. I had to bear the beatings and bruises,” she says, as she recalled the horror she …show more content…
But as we have seen, that’s not always the case. For people like Pinky, independence and strength gained from these ordeals is put to use, and is what pushes them to succeed and to achieve what they have always wanted. No parent would wish for their child to be raised in the slums. No parent would ever wish for their child to grow up in these types of circumstances. But it can be these very conditions which reveal that a person’s character is not dependent on size or wealth, but by the hope and vigilance they carry in their hearts. It is these struggles that teach us that there is no obstacle insurmountable in the face of