Do you know the story of the Little Match Girl, penned by Hans Andersen, the Danish Master of the literary fairy tale? Here it is, in a nutshell.
On a freezing New Year’s Eve, a poor young girl, shivering and barefoot, tries to sell matches in the street. Afraid to go home because her father will beat her for failing to sell any matches, she huddles in the alley between two houses and lights matches, one by one, to warm herself.
In the flames of the matches, she sees a series of comforting visions, the warm iron stove, the lovely roast goose, the great glorious Christmas tree. Each vision also disappears as its match burns out; then in the sky she sees a shooting star, which her grandmother had told her means someone is on their way to Heaven. In the flame of the next match, she sees her grandmother, the only person to have treated her with love and kindness. To keep the vision of her grandmother alive as long as possible, the girl lights the entire bundle of matches.
When the matches are gone, the girl dies, and her grandmother carries her soul to Heaven. The next morning, passersby find the girl frozen, and express pity. They do not know about the wonderful visions she had seen, or how happy she is with her grandmother in Heaven. Despite facing cold and hunger and the apathy of the people around her, the little match girl does not lose her faith and hope.
The little girl, hungry and cold, retains her stubborn spirit of struggle for existence. But the society around her is callous and oppressive.
Are we not the same? We turn a deaf ear to the unacceptable misery and plight of the poorest of the poor, the grinding poverty of the masses in our society. We, the middle classes, try to gloss over this struggle for survival that characterizes the lives of the poor. Every day, there are millions of children in India who go hungry, do not get a square meal a day, who are stunted because of malnutrition and eke out a precarious living against the heavy odds of life.
Hungry Match Girls and Families around Us
As in the story of the Little Match girl, her visions are proof of her undiminished hope and faith in life; so also, our poor live with visions and dreams that enable them to survive, caught as they are in a web of poverty that imprisons them, sometimes for life. This sheer courage they have helps them survive; it is life looking for itself.
This Christmas I choose to reflect on the poor of the world, and especially in India. They are always the worst hit by tragedies and calamities that plague the world. Similarly, in India, the lockdown and the pandemic took a high toll of their lives. The sight of hapless migrants, walking and bicycling across hundreds of thousands of miles, to reach their villages still haunts me. But at the same time, I cannot but marvel at their courage and persistence, their struggle to survive, the hope they keep burning in their hearts and their ability to rise above despair.
Where and when will our poor be emancipated? Will our callous rich and the middle classes ever look at the problems of society through the lens of the poor and the deprived? Don’t we realize that the poor like the Little Match girl also have dreams and visions; don’t they hope that someday their situation will improve, and they will enjoy the comforts of life, which are guaranteed to the rich and relatively well-off middle classes?
This Christmas, will most of us spare a thought for the poor? Yes, there are many laudable acts by parishes and religious houses, which distribute food, rations and clothes to the less well off. Some families share a meal or give new clothes. What are you and I going to do?
What can we do for structural change? Do we give a serious thought to the fact that we sometimes serve the very structures of oppression that keep such people poor? The poor face hunger, defeat and despair every day—but do not give up. Can we think of at least a single step we can take to change their lot for the better?
Janina Gomes
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