Mohammad Sahil is ten years old. He goes to school at Free School Street. He eats puri-chai for breakfast, skips lunch, and has a plate of plain rice for dinner. He sells chewing gum at traffic signals in the evening, and goes to sleep at about twelve at night. His bed, though, is a polythene sheet spread on the pavement. He has a gunny bag cover, but no pillow.
There are kids like Sahil in Calcutta and its fringes, over 50,000 of them. They don't have enough to eat, no new clothes on Id or Durga Pujo, toys or books. Often, they are victims of physical, and sometimes of sexual abuse. Theft, scrounging for morsels of food and begging form their means of subsistance. Sometimes, this is substituted by long hours of labour at tea stalls or rice hotels where wage earners and taxi drivers eat, and they get to bring home about a thousand rupees at the end of each month.
My aim in writing the final story on street children in Calcutta proper is to bring out the conditions under which they live, what their hopes and dreams are, and what we as responsible and empathetic human beings could do about the problem. I'll interview street children and their guardians, spokespersons from organizations working in the area, and the socially more priviledged who can contribute positively towards solving the problem.
Any ideas on improving the story, or your experiences with street kids are welcome. Do leave a comment.
No comments:
Post a Comment