It would be a long night for Amer. Like him, many other malnourished and orphaned children would spend the night without having any drinkable water and edible food in their screaming tummies.

Rishi and Aram. The two lucky bastards every orphan there hated. Rishi and Aram had this supernatural ability to be at the right place at the right time without fail. Or atleast everyone thought so. Whenever they heard a rumor about tourists visiting the nearby temple, they never shared the intel with others. NEVER. Then within hours, you would see those two critters returning with mouthful of food offered to them out of sympathy. And the food they held in their hands, they would mark it as their territory by spitting on it. This was meant as a safeguarding technique. Even if an orphan penetrated their highly sophisticated security systems and stole the food they claimed as rightly theirs, he would still find it disgusting to put it in his mouth. 

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"I urge the journalists everywhere to redirect the media focus on the inhumane if not criminal treatment of these orphans. Who knew that "being cared for by the State" meant the basic needs of the children being criminally neglected?", the President of the National Association of Journalists (NAJ) said. She took a pause, maybe to gather her thoughts and decide her next words. Maybe she thought she should tread carefully now. After all, 2 of her colleagues went missing when they raised their voice against the state. 

"The State prides itself on spirituality. Oh, the ever so evasive enlightenment. Is this enlightenment?"

A hand went up in the crowd. "Yes?"

Anjali Grover was dreading the next question. While this presidency allowed her to act as a watchdog of the oppressive government policies, the restraint she had to show every second was suffocating. As good as she was in placing the blame on the government, she sucked when answering questions coming from the crowd. Her superiors always tell her to "tactfully answer", whatever the hell that means. 

"Miss Grover, what would you say to the Minister of Family Welfare?"

Ah shit, here we go, thought Anjali.

"I think his policies are progressive. But their implementation is extremely barbaric."

Did I just say barbaric, wtf?, she thought.

She took a deep breath before continuing. 

"I mean, I appreciate his brutal crackdown on domestic violence perpetrators. What I don't appreciate is his silence on the orphans issue. What would YOU say? Don't you think letting orphans die is criminally barbaric?", she said her voice becoming higher and higher in amplitude with each sentence.

Calm down, Anjali, calm down, she thought to herself.

The person who asked the question, stunned with the impressive albeit dangerous display of emotions, sat down after that.

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" Minister's silence 'criminally barbaric'? " were the headlines replaying themselves the next day.

Headlines should have been words like "NAJ Prez directly challenges Minister", "State criminally neglecting its children", and so on. But alas, histrionic media is what our country deserved. Therefore, that is what our country got. 

To be continued.

-end-