The Wild Dogged ones

Brutalised and abused, they love their freedom. Hiding the obsessive longing to become Bollywood superstars

Samarth Pathak Delhi, Hardnews

Street children. You see them everywhere, at red lights (through the windows of air-conditioned cars, while the radio plays Jai Ho), at crowded marketplaces (while shopping for the latest designer jeans, shades and handbags), near eateries (while relishing burgers, pizzas, thanda matlab... and the likes), and at places of worship (while praying to god for "success and well-being in life"). Still, they remain ‘invisible entities' left to be ignored, disgraced and abused while everyone looks the other way.

Life on the streets is no easy living. Everything is learnt the hard way. It's a constant battle for existence. From abject poverty, hunger and homelessness, to sex abuse, physical brutalisation, exploitation and hard labour, to drugs and gang wars, the children on the streets face it all, in the dawn of their lives. There is no one to care, to protect, to guide. Uncannily, this is also a life full of freedom, outside institutions or control, there is no one to answer to, no one to hold back, no one steering the wheel of destiny.

Yet, it is also a life which pinches, punches and pulverises cruelly, without remorse, every single day, every single minute. Each step opens up a myriad problems to be faced, obstacles to be overcome and struggles to be overcome. This continuous struggle makes them resilient and mature, many years before adulthood arrives, and inculcates a sharpness of mind which well-protected and cocooned, middle and upper class urban kids, can never match.

Most street children near the railway platforms are runaways from rural India. A majority of them belong to poor villages of UP, Bihar and Bengal, and are roughly between 8-13 years of age. According to an estimate, every tenth train in Delhi contains at least one runaway child. This means that every month, nearly 900 runaway children come to the Capital in pursuit of a better life, but end up living on the streets.

A plethora of reasons compels them to run away from their homes. Some wish to escape from the vicious circle of poverty and bleak futures. Some wish to run away from their alcoholic fathers, violent stepmothers and sexual abuse. And many, inspired by movies, dream of making it big in life by going through the same struggles their ‘hero' went through. Invariably, they all head for the cities starry-eyed, with big aspirations on their little shoulders, completely unaware of the challenges their future beholds. Still, no matter how hard the times, their hopes remain unfazed, dreams unbroken, spirit indomitable.

Shekhar came to Delhi when he was just about 12. He ran away from his village of Munger in Bihar to become a ‘Bollywood actor' -- like his idol Shahrukh Khan. But destiny had a different plan. "The Delhi of my dreams was very different from the one which I saw. I dreamt of getting a good job, driving swanky cars and residing in big buildings. So I ran away from my home. But I was very scared when I saw the city's railway station. There was a flood of people, and I was all alone," he told Hardnews. Today, apart from the several plays he has acted in, Shekhar works as the coordinator of the Salaam Balak Trust, an NGO working for the upliftment of street children in Delhi. His is a rags to ‘life's not-so-bad' story, while he coyly admits he loved the "street life much more", where he spent two years of his adolescence.