[Reader-list] Of late postings and faulty paradigms

[anjali jyoti]

Hi all,


Having completed disappeared from the postings after
the introductory first post- I shame facedly resurface
with my second and third postings back to back. 
I must say that my initial explorations have been a
humbling experience. I must also say that there is a
huge difference in what I had envisaged and what I
find happening in reality. 

Anyways, here is what I have:

Chapter 1:The ladder of street child society
Based on their state of employement ,their income and
thus their lifestyle a clear cut hierarchy emerges
among the children of the streets of Delhi.
The bottom most rung, the majority and the ones who
get eliminated under the definition of a ‘street
child’ by most NGOs are the kids who get adopted by
poor families. They may have run away from home but on
arriving in Delhi and living on streets for a while
they get taken in my some of the poor familes who live
in pockets in small groups in tented structures in
various parts of the city. Here they get trained on
how to beg or sell things like flowers, newspapers etc
at street lights- flags on Republic and Independence
Day. The mother floats around a nearby red light with
a baby hanging on her side. The families may have kids
of their own but the adopted children help bring in
more money. The girls specially get taken in by such
families. Some boys get attached to men for various
reasons which will be discussed in the next post, and
form relationships by the names of Chacha, Mama, Tau,
Bada Bhai etc and stay with them, beg and get money
bak to them.


The next category would be of those children who run
away from home and land up at anyone of the railway
stations in Delhi. Here they get befriended by boys
who have been staying at the station for months or
years. They usually have a gang. The boys stay on the
station, live off the food served on the trains with a
backup at some dhabad nearby. Their work is centered
around collecting pet bottles from trains and/ or rag
picking. Some work in tea stalls.

The third category is more affluent. They have
acquired more money over time or have an elder brother
or uncle who invests some money in buying books from
Daryaganj which are then sold at most red lights
across the city. They buy the latest books which have
been diligently photocopied by our industrious local
industry, who shamelessly laugh at the notion of
piracy, at a fixed price of around Rs. 50, pack them
in cellophane and sell them. Paulo Coelho, Vikram
Seth, Jhumpa Lahiri, Jeffrey Archer- you name it, they
have it.  All the profits are theirs because its their
money which they have invested. 


Then there are these boys, around 11-15 years ,
wearing jackets or T-shirts with ‘Maxim’, ‘HT’ written
on them and selling magazines of those particular
companies.They get a daily wage of Rs 100 to Rs. 90
from the company irrespective of whether they sell
anything or not. If they do sell anything they get 10%
of the price of the magazine. This makes their monthly
wages more than Rs 3000 a month. In the day they eat
at local ‘thelas’ around the red lights where they
work, paying Rs 15 to Rs10 for a plate of Rajma
chawal, or Channa chawal. At night they cook at home.
Home is a flat which has been rented by around 10-12
boys who stay together. These the rent is around
Rs1500 a month which they all share. Whatever they
earn at the end of each month is saved up with the
‘thekedaar’ who gives them the magazines and they
collect it whenever they require it. The children who
operate at the South Delhi red lights, stay mainly in
Dakshin puri and Ganesh Nagar. They have a TV and most
times a VCD player in their rooms.

The last category which again may not qualify as
street children but more under the category of working
children are the children who work in small industries
within the city. Motor parts, garages, bearings,
rubber parts. It also includes children who have been
brought to the city to do fine work like zardozi
embroidery. They sometimes stay with relatives who
brought them from the village to work in Delhi.
Sometimes they take up a place together and some of
them stay with their parents. They earn to a tune of
Rs 2,500-3,500 a month.


Coming up next: Chap2: Home Truths


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