[Reader-list] tour de station

Thu May 4 03:06:54 IST 2006

Chap 3:Tour de station 

A warm charming smile, a confident friendly bearing,
very organized, very professional- thats how the
guides of Sallam Balak come across at the New Delhi
Railway station. Yes its been all over the papers,
gaining a lot of popularity, you have to book
yourself in advance for this unique idea of a tour by
street children of the station where they used to
live. The likes of Rakesh Mehra are taking the tour in
the hope of inspiring themselves into making a film..
I was fortunate to land on a day when all the
foreigners who were supposed to come didnt turn up
and there was just me, Javed-the main guide, two
younger guides- in- training and a very disappointed
photographer whose sole purpose of taking the tour was
to take pictures of the kids with the firangs and
the street kids but ahem!, he had to just make do with
me. So I had three (could I call them ex-street kids)
from the SB trust to answer my plethora of questions-
Javed, very much the guide was sincere, charming and
helpful, communicating well in English, but mindful of
the time and the routine to be carried out. The other
two Danish and Chandraprem were a little shy, but more
eager to share their stories once you showed interest
in them, trying hard to throw in as many smatterings
of English as they could
jumping from English to Hindi
in order to convey their story easily and correctly.
So along with my three guides feeling very much the
queen of the tour with a photographer in tow, I was 
zipped to the first place- a Salaam Balak contact
point for children of the families living at or around
the station. These are not children living completely
on their own but children nwith familes living below
the poverty line. There is adari and a blackboard-
alphabets, and numbers are taught to the ever
distracted kids and they hang around there from 9-4
after which they go to their respective families and
are whisked off to work- selling gajras, begging etc
at CP.

Then I was escorted to platform No. 1-the luxury
platform where all the fancy trains-the Rajdhanis and
Shatabdis come- which all the station kids vie for the
food and free bees which people leave behind. To hide
from the police they scuttle around on the gaps
between the tracks where the policeman cant reach
them.
Then off we went to platform no.4 where there is a
fruitwala stall on the roof of which there is an
arrangement for children to sleep, because they have
good relations with the fruitwalla-hes been around
for sometime- they get him any fruits which they may
find on the trains and he lets them sleep or hide over
his stall. Few steps ahead is a chemist- the only one
on the entire station- which the children use in cases
of emergency- when they may want basic medication and
are not aware of any hospital to go to nearby.
Below the footbridge spanning all the platforms a
space is formed between the footbridge and the roof of
each platform where children huddle and sleep in the
night.
The watering line-where the kids wash themselves at
least once a week along with the trains getting washed
was shown from a distance. Again I was whished off to
be shown a pani ki tanki from a distance under which
I was told that various gangs operate. One has to
belong to some sort of a gang or fraternity in order
to survive at the station- it offers you security and
support-the dark side being that it also forces you
into things which you might not have otherwise gotten
into- drugs, abuse etc. Fights between gangs over ego
clashes among the leaders or small petty grudges are
common and cause many an injury.

Then we head towards the GPS-the police station at the
station on the first floor of which is a Salaam Balak
center- they have a health department with a doctor
visiting regularly every day from 10:30-2:30. The most
common disease among street children I was told was
STD, and skin diseases of various sorts. Some also
suffer from TB for which they need to be put on a
special diet apart from the medication. Some of the
children of the station (you dont bump into too many
of them, theyre busy with collecting bottles and such
like) stop and interact with my guide- but I feel like
an utter outsider, alienated from them by the fact
that Im intruding on their bacha- kucha sense of
privacy  in what is anyways perhaps, the most public
place on the planet. 
To protect their privacy photography is not really
allowed (except for media coverage, which I found kind
of contradictory in itself). Also youre not really
shown much of the station- nor do you interact with
children from the station- few safe places- few
stories and experiences of the guides themselves at
the station(where they have spent 5-8 years), some
anecdotes mostly being taken to areas were salaam
Balak has a contact point and is in no way conflicting
with any gang or other NGO. This is also because there
have been a few conflicts with the children still
staying at the station and our guides from the SB
trust, with those children asking for money from the
guides for intruding into their life and displaying it
to people for money, with the ones still living at the
station having nothing to gain out of it.
After the GPS, we rickshaw it through Paharganj to
Apna Ghar- salaam balak home for boys-they come and
go as they please-get to stay, sleep ,eat food,watch
TV , attend classes, learn vocational skills develop
whatever skills they may have or be interested in. A
quick tour of the building ending with a table
displaying items for sale made by the children-the
proceeds of which would go for their welfare
 If I had
been a tourist from a foreign land-I guess all this
would have been very interesting and unique-an
experience to remember- BUT for me- I didnt get much
in terms of the spaces I was looking for, from the
tour. I got the most out of my guides when we had
actually finished the tour and they sat down with me
for some time just to chat- we had gotten to know each
other they were more open, less guarded. 
Experientially, I saw more of a street childs life at
the station when I went on my own. I saw where a
particular gang staying near a water tank, saw them
sleeping huddled together, saw them openly taking
solution in front of me, running to get food from an
incoming train, messily eating dal out of an aluminium
foil container, sometimes they team up in pairs and
sift through trains by turn- so if one train comes
along, Saif will search through it while Krishna will
take a break and when the next train comes it will be
Krishnas turn to sift and Saifs to chill. I been
accosted by a 27 year old menacing looking leader or
goon, Rohit who scared me out of my wits; how he
openly boasted of taking smack and cocaine  claimed
that he does not do a single good thing to earn a
living, and that to live the life he leads one cannot
survive by doing good work-so he does all sorts of
bad things- picking pockets, lifting luggage, etc.
etc.
I saw kids betting their coins in games of various
kinds-with kanchas and cards, a older boy openly
kissing a small child (why do I write about it? Coz I
guess it shocked me a bit-you may know about something
but when you see it happening you still get shocked.)
I saw a temple off platform 5 where the children hide
from the police and also find great solace with the
sandhus languishing around, who happen to be their
most easy suppliers of drugs. I walked through empty
trains along the length of the docking tracks where
the trains are washed and where the children play hide
and seek and still rummage  the trains for any useful
rubbish. I was humbled by a boy who took my
questionarrie sheet- (questionnaire sheets didnt
really work for me ,by the way), and read it in the
most fluent English with such ease- translated it then
for the other boys, got bored 4 questions down the
list and went off for another sniff on solution. Ive
had children tell me such tall stories that sometimes
its difficult to sift the truth ,or any semblance of
it, from the gup.

My tour guides have added tit bits of information for
me as we talked- they told about the Shiela cinema
hall, where most kids go on a Saturday and when in the
mood, watch 4 show- marathons. Saturdays seem to be
special days for them-they have a bath, go to Sadar
Bazaar and buy new clothes for very reasonable prices-
Rs 10 for a pant etc.and then go watch films. Many
children sometimes wear a clothing for an entire week
day in day out till it gets completely tattered and
then go buy themselves an new piece of clothing. They
told me how children are very influenced and
fascinated with films- some run away from home because
of what they see in films- they feel theyll go to
Mumbai and become actors or go to the bada shahar
and find work and earn pots of money.

What they told me about girls who arrive at the
station was also interesting- most girls get picked up
by pimps- they are easily trusting and dont know
better. If not by the pimps, the gang leaders catch
them and bring them to the gang. They kind of become
the gang leaders property, and if by chance he is
thrown in jail or killed, they become the property of
whoever becomes the next leader. Mirroring story lines
reflected in underworld gang stories or even stories
from the Mughal, pre mughal era- this pattern is not
uncommon in history. Many a time, and again according
to the pattern, these women get emotionally attached
to the very men who had abused them and when taken in
for counseling and given an alternate choice of life
they object saying- nahi! Main to yahin pe theek
hoon, mujhe yahin pe acha lagta hai! Such is the
unfathomable human psyche and many organizations have
faced a deep helplessness in the face of this refusal
of an individual to help himself or herself. 
Many women, of course, get used like tissues by anyone
and everyone who feels the urge to sneeze and as many
times they choose to sneeze (pardon the metaphor-it
just came along !). Danish recounts an incident where
22 men had sex with a woman at the platform in a
single day. Javed recounts of how once when he was
part of a gang- his leader brought two women from
Bengal back one night, being small Javed couldnt do
much to help them, but after being abused who pagal
si ho gayi thi, is what he remembers.
Now, working with Salaam Balak, Javed has developed a
strategy- he tries to keep good relations with some
gang leaders and since they are his friends-he
jokingly tells them- that if a new boy or girl comes-
what will you do-youll just ruin his or her life- why
dont you bring them to me Ill take them to a better
place-at least theyll be cared for. Till now Javed
has managed to get 15 children through gang leaders
including two girls.
Also, currently pursuing a Bachelors degree in Arts
and wanting to prepare for MSW (Master of Social
Work), he acts as a mentor for many children. He
proudly claims that around 50 children  have decided
to change themselves after seeing what he has been
able to do with his life. Danish is another wonder he
has refined the art of macabre- he makes anything and
everything out of it- conducts workshops all over the
country, has his own authorized card which allows him
to display at exhibitions and places like Dilli Haat.

What has surprised, saddened as well as amused me the
most as I speak and interact with people over the past
few months has been the subtle competitiveness
(rivalry would be too strong a word) among the NGos
working with street children. They all work at the
same station but hardly interact,like one kid put
itsab apna apna kaam karke chale jaate hain. Though
that apna apna kaam is actually a common goal or
target seems to have been forgotten. They vie for
awards- national and international, for titles like
the largest or the oldest etc. 
The children of course love the attention and the
freebies and whatever the NGO each NGO might try in
order to get them to sit and study, or stay at the
centre.
Lets whisk off to Nizammudin Railway station and see
how it goes there:
Right now there are mainly two NGOs with centres or
night shelters at Nizamuudin- PCI and Butterflies.
Other NGOs also wrok here but do not have shelters of
any sort. PCI has a shelter just off the exit of
platform 7 while Butterflies has one more towards
Okhla but the children have a shortcut along the
tracks to reach it. The Butterflies one is a night
shelter- it has the added attraction of having a T.V.
which draws many of the younger children like moths to
a bulb.
But interestingly, though the Nizamuddin station is
small only 7 platforms and not too many children stay
there as compared to the other railway stations, they
all dont sleep in the shelters. Most of them pick
bottles from trains and there is are two very
organized Kabadi walas at two ends of platform 7.
Loyalties are distributed among the children to each
Kabadi wala and as a result two main gangs have
surfaced. So one gang picks bottles for one Kabadi
wala and the other for the other. The bring in their
bottles and other stuff like glass, metal etc. This is
dumped in a huge pile on the outskirts of platform 7
on the backs of an effluent nala. Then its is
diligently sorted out by the kids into respective
piles. 
Apart from getting around 50 paisa per plastic bottle
the loving Kabadi walas wife  gives them some
semblance of a bedding for the night and they sleep
all huddled together on top of the big bags of
kabad- doped out under the starry sky. 
Education classes are organized by both the NGOs.
There are a string of small restaurants in the lanes
behind the station where the children eat.
A makeshift cinema hall in some tents which shows
films for 5 min- not the whole things- ( I have yet to
see this place, I have only heard of it through a
child, and hope these are not blue films) is also a
much frequented place.
My unofficial guide though the station Mangal, a tall,
sincere brown eyed boy who was learning how to drive a
taxi at a nearby taxi stand, and claimed to have
stopped taking solution for quite some time has been
sent to Sharan detox center because he had started
taking too much solution. Froggy in well syndrome
all over again

Purani Dilli Railway station does not have so many
kids even though the maximum children land up in Delhi
at that station because the fancy and luxury trains
dont come there. Nizammudin and New Delhi Stations
get all the Rajdhanis and the Sampark Krantis and
Shatabdis  more bottles to pick, flowers too
sometimes, good and easily available food- (since they
stuff you so much that a lot gets wasted); more
tourists and rich people, and if lucks on your side-
a bag left behind in all the hustle bustle

..

Next time: 
Chap4: CP ka circle

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