Salaam Delhi
PAROMITA PAIN
|
Spend some moments with the kids who live on the railway platforms.
|
PHOTO: V. SUDERSHAN
BREAKING THE ICE: Volunteers with the street kids.
Have you ever wondered how the many poor children on the streets that you see picking rags, running errands or simply sitting idle as you go school, actually live? Do they hangout anywhere? Answers to these questions and more can be found in the "city walk with a difference" recently instituted by the Salaam Balak Trust.
This will cover no historical monuments Delhi is famous for. Instead you will get to see how young people survive in conditions that would leave most of us stumped. For designated tour guides Shekhar Saini and Javed Khan, members of the trust, this is also time to practise and improve their English. The tour starts at the New Delhi railway station. The station for most of us is a place where trains come and go. But for the many children living on its edges and sleeping in the spaces between the over bridges and the roofs over the platform, this is home.
Amidst the teeming crowds of people, runaway children may be the most inconspicuous. But the dazed air about them is a dead giveaway. The boys are generally taken to various gang leaders, usually consisting of older boys who have lived longer on the streets than others to be put into groups. "No child can survive alone on the streets," says Javed. Almost all the kids work. Young people have to work for without that they will have nothing to eat. But grim reality apart, the money earned is also used for fun that mainly consists of the cinema.
"They love the movies," say Javed and Saturday is the big day of celebration since most movies release on Friday. After a bath and new clothes bought for as little as Rs 15 from the near by Sudder Market, small groups set out to have a rollicking time.
Hide and seek
And of course being so close to trains also means travel and most of them are seasoned travellers. "Here we don't need tickets but wits to escape the ticket checker," grins Javed, the hero of many such escapades. He has seen the Golden temple at Amritsar and many of his friends have been to Bombay to catch movie premiers.
Shekhar acted deaf and dumb when asked for his ticket and Javed pretended he was a sweeper employed by the Railways. The risks here are many.
Often there isn't a warm place to sleep and till one gets accustomed there is always the danger of choosing the wrong place. When Javed ran away from his house in Kalyanpur to reach Delhi he slept on the rail tracks to wake up to a train passing over him.
The cops aren't friendly and escaping them and their cruel sticks take up a major portion of the day. That's why the vendors on Platform five are so important. They buy the stuff children forage off the trains and also protect them when the cops are out on raid.
Did you ever think that the roofs of the shops could make for a bedroom or that the toilets of the luxury train a wonderful treat on a hot summers day?
At the end of it all street children wont seem like strangers to be avoided any more. Why you could even make friends with the whole lot of them!
Contact 9873130383 (Shekhar) for details. Email: sbttour@yahoo.com
Printer friendly
page
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Young World
