I guess it was about 10 years ago i had just joined college , I was travelling in a train from Delhi to Lucknow (both are capital cities in India) .There were still couple of minutes for train to leave the station . A boy (aged 10 I think) boarded for selling newspaper .

Although child labor is a crime but still some unfortunate souls have to go through it in our country.

Anyway moving forward , 3 middle aged men discussing political system , cricket , foreign policy and what not were sitting in the same compartment called the boy and took a newspaper . When asked about money , to my utter shock the leader of the group ( a well built man in his 40s) slapped the boy and started abusing.

At once i thought someone would object to it and respond to the big guy but not a single person in the compartment showed any interest to what just happened. I couldn't take it ...my first thought was to get up and punch the guy straight in the face . but somehow I held myself back , called the boy gave him some change which was probably thrice the value of that newspaper and asked the boy to leave . The big guy took is as insult and started grumbling with his other friends . I just gave him continuous look in the eye and stared him down . By this time other passengers were also curious about the event and started talking about their hooligan behavior , the poor boy, what is right and what is wrong etc etc .

Those men left the compartment within 5 minutes . I just smiled , closed my eyes and turned on my headphones ....