There is a mess near my office which is pretty famous for its Andra food and they enjoy continuous patronage from employees of nearby software parks. It has been a couple of weeks since I went to the place. When i went today, we noticed two young boys, about 12 years of age, cleaning tables in the mess. I was shocked to see this. We know child labor is still pretty common in a lot of places in our country, but this, in a place where there were so many educated people around. We confronted the owner about this. He appeared to be well read and when we asked him why he is employing children to clean tables, his reply was that he couldn't find anyone else to do that job. He said that he knew the implications of his actions, but he couldn't do anything else. He says if he had not employed these kids, he would have to close his mess down. We told him that that is not a reason to employ children and we also added that if he was going to continue making these children work, then we would have to appeal to our employees to stop their patronage of this place. He at once went on the defensive; He asked us for a couple of days to find someone else to replace them. He went on saying that we were looking at things from our point of view but he had no other choice... Now, if he does not do something about it, we will at least ask our colleagues not to visit that mess anymore. But this throws up a lot of other issues. How do we protect these children? How can we ask him to just stop employing them? These kids seemed to be very cheerful and going on about their work happily... I wonder what is the reason for them to have started working... I know i can do more... But something is stopping me... Is that the fear that i might get into something way beyond what I can handle? How much would you like a toothbrush?