In Search Of An Oasis

We are children to some people, but they also have children. We have ambitions as individuals or as a family, but they do, too. At the turn of a knob water gushes out for me, but no such commands exist in their own world. At the flip of a switch I get illumination, heat, a ride and many more things–just at the flip of a switch but life has not smiled that much on them to avail them with such opportunities.

After walking miles to get things done, scavenge firewood, fetch water, hunt games–with just a little left after ensuring survival, they still want to match up with us to go to school and buy some dress or ease transportation with the acquisition of a bicycle or a bike. Yet they bring their plenty “perishable harvest” to the market and we so mercilessly beat down the price (thinking we have a strong bargaining power) and since there is no choice for most of them to make, they let go.

Painfully, we go to contemporary shopping malls and find the same products-even more injurious because of artificiality in production and preservation- and buy at non-negotiable, ridiculously high prices. This piece speaks for these people with lesser opportunities of building their fortune in an appeal that you buy with very little or no bargain.

“You will always have the poor among you…” but you shouldn’t make them poorer. They literally do the hard work of finding an oasis in the wastelands to water themselves as it proverbially happens to everyone else too. All our hustle is in search of a greener pasture.

Medium: Charcoal on Paper      Size: 16″ X 12″      Year: 2015