We stood halfway up the busy stairwayleading up from Platform 5 of the New Delhi Railway Station, looking at a pileof blankets in a nook formed between the angled asbestos roof of the platformand the concrete walkway overhead, throbbing with the passing of a thousandfeet. ‘I used to sleep there’, Javed said, ‘I had two quilts, threeblankets and five friends.’
I was part of a group on a walk through the station and Paharganj led by Javedand Shekhar, both young men, both of whom had been ‘street children’ forseveral years, having run away from faraway homes to come and live and work anddodge policemen among the trains and tracks and roofs and platforms of thestation. They were now with the Salam Balak Trust, which had given them andhundreds of other children like them, an opportunity to move on from that life.But they were revisiting that life now, and showing it off with a fierce pride.
The children at the railway station make their living mostly as rag- andwastepickers, pouncing on the detritus of journeys, on the discarded plastic ofmineral water bottles and food packaging. Their biggest threat is the policemen(With You, For You, Always) who thrash the children every chance they get. Sothe kids don’t wait on the platforms for the trains to come in, they wait inthe spaces between the tracks, and jump into the carriages from the other side.All of this is recounted to me with a certain glee. Come Friday and with theweek’s money they buy cheap clothes from Sadar Bazaar, bathe from theconveniently inaccessible hoses in between the railway tracks, and go out towatch movies, at Sheila, Khanna and Imperial. Most are obsessed with films.Shekhar has traveled ticketless to Bombay thrice to catch premieres. He’s notalone. Many of the children have wandered all over India, intimate as they arewith trains, and not being encumbered by much baggage.
"Most children run away from home because of poverty, physical abuse, sexualharassment," says Shekhar. Some have other reasons. Javed ran away from hometo see Delhi’s monuments. Javed smiles sheepishly. He was fourteen then. Thefirst monument he saw was the Red Fort, but the years since coming to Delhi werenot uniformly pleasant. The life of children on the railway station is full ofviolence and exploitation. Javed has been stabbed in the stomach, and has lost afriend to electrocution by the wires that power the electric trains. Many of thechildren sniff correction fluid for a high. "But even after being stabbed, Icame back to the station. Do you know why children keep coming back to thisplace and this life despite all the hardship here?"
Long pause, as he looks at us.
"Freedom?
"Freedom," he says.
Salam Balak Trust has begun fascinating weekend walks through everyday lifein New Delhi Railway Station and Paharganj. Contact Shekhar (9873130383) orJaved (9810975284), or mail them at javed_khan475@yahoo.com andshekhar_saini41@yahoo.com
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This article originally appeared in Outlook Delhi City Limits, May 15 2006.
