Caught in the cross-fire

I had hit Delhi Haat yesterday to sample some of my favourite momos with fruit beer after a long long time(why long?that's a story for another day) and yet avoid the weekend crowds and the accompanying dangers of being jostled around by asweaty mass of humanity. As I was preparing to enter the Haat I stopped dead in my tracks on seeing the photograph of an emaciated young woman with a steel claw instead of a hand.The picture was on a poster for an exhibition of photographs inside and I decided to have a dekho while I was at the heart. I spent a truamatic 15 minutes at that exhibition and yet I'm glad I went.

The exhibition titled "Caught in the Cross fire" highlighted the plight of civilian casualties of armed conflicts and the illegal trade in arms.Though I'll admit that the presentation could have been better, the photographs themselves were outstanding.Spanning the work of photographers across two decades and almost all the continents, they ranged from the startling to the heart-rending.

Though all the photographs were eye openers, those of children, some no older than 10 or 11, enrolled as child "soldiers' by guerilla 'armies" were especiallydisturbing. One particularly poignant one was of a young girl, not more than 15-16 who was enrolled as a child soldier in Uganda.She was wearing a London school sweatshirt when chances were that she hadn't probably seen the inside of even a primary school and would probably be dead long before her 18th birthday- the age at which any one of us would have enrolled in university.

The exhibition is currently on in 16 countries across the globe.In New Delhi it's on at the Delhi Haat till the 15th of October.Please do visit if you can.Alternately visit

http://controlarms.org

and please do sign the petition.