KUMKUM'S RIGHT

Raman was good at his studies. He was also a sensitive and sensible boy, who always tried to understand things in detail.

- Lalit Shaurya

There was a hut at some distance from his house where the family of a poor labourer lived. Everyday, Raman would observe them while heading to school. A small girl about five to six years old looked very weak and sat outside the hut all day long.

"Ma, why is that girl so weak? Doesn't she go to school? I always see her outside her house," Raman asked his mother one morning.

Raman's mother replied, "Son, she is a labourer's child. She might be malnourished and not getting a proper diet, and that might be why she is so frail. She probably doesn't even go to school, and that's why she's always sitting outside their hut."

"It is a good thing to go to school. She should go to school, right?" Raman asked.

"You are right, Raman. But her parents don't send her to school; it is their responsibility to do that," Mother said.

"Can we help her anyway?"

"We will think about that later, as we are getting late for school now."

Raman and his mother headed towards the school.

She left him inside the school gate, where he met his friend, Aman, and they started walking to their class together.

Something was happening in the school-it was being cleaned.

"What's happening? Why is the school being cleaned? Is anyone visiting the school?" Raman asked Aman.