By Deepak Kaul
Her fingers clasped tightly around the cold fence links. Her face was pressed against rusty metal, and she ignored the sharp pain—even though it bit into her tired skin.
Was there really freedom and hope on the other side? It looked so much like this side. An artificial border could not divide the landscape. Besides, she knew uncertainty, penury, hunger, and disease awaited. Would they really be better off if they were allowed to cross?
Yes, we will, she thought firmly. The fence was the difference between life and death. It was better to be hungry than to be dead.
Awesome stuff, DK !
A powerful story — of hope for a better future. A real Winner!
If the refugee was being welcomed on the other side, an immediate jumping over the fence would appear to hold great promise and any uncertainty of the future would be traded off easily against all these horrors of present life on this wrong side of the fence- the hunger, pain humiliations. But if the jump carried a real and present danger of an immediate violent death, then the person may be forced to take a more pragmatic decision to continue on the wrong side with al its ills, pain, sickness, hunger & humiliation, since there stil would exist The matter of human hope and uncertainties of future including accidents. An interim biding of time in despair may still seem a better trade-off than immediate death, provided the human mind can still see some glimmer of hope of things changing., a better escape opportunity arising ,