goldenboy

Dirt that has lasted on his skin for ages, beard that grew on his face counting each passing day, clothes that haven’t been washed since a long long time, hair that is now a log-book of all the bad climates he endured here, all the unclean places he lay his head on to escape from his world in sleep.

If you see through his dirt, you will most probably see a handsome face. He might be in his 20’s or early 30’s. Long sharp nose, wide eyes, a chiseled face. And you can’t help but imagine how he must have been before this, before this misfortune struck him- on the streets of Bombay.

You’d come across such young people everyday on the streets of the city; fighting the odds of fate, hanging on the verge of sanity, sometimes with a wound or two on their body, looking for food in dustbins, begging for a spare coin, looking for a shelter when rains slash over the land- stark naked fear staring out of their eyes…

This is somebody’s son, somebody’s husband, somebody’s father… now living in fear and hunger… in a ‘perpetual’ nightmare that never seems to end.

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The city of Bombay, has a population of nearly thirteen million people. The politicians, “our benefactors!” decided in the early 90’s that it was time to step out of the ‘idealism’ of post-independence years and let India take its real place in the World Economy. Liberalization set in. Most of the benefits of this Economic revolution went to Metropolises like Bombay. While entire families of farmers in rural areas continued to consume poison to avoid starvation, McDonald’s and Coke came in here to stay. The government fell, the trend continued. Again, an awake populace brought down a government that built flyovers and claimed ‘India was shining’ (in the cities of course). Thus again a new government was given a chance to prove its worth.

Meanwhile, there was a mass exodus… from villages that had nothing to eat, no clean water to drink and no electricity, and where the village elders decided to burn lovers marrying outside one’s community.

City was the place India was indeed shining; in the streetlights that came up on new flyovers, the neon signs that glowed over multinational establishments. Trees were cut in abundance- to make way for new residential buildings and offices.

The rural youth flocked in great numbers to the glittering city of Bombay, like a moth attracted to fire. They choked our public transport systems, some filled in the new job vacancies that had cropped up and faced retaliation by the original inhabitants of the city, some decided to return back home. And a few stayed back, on the streets of Bombay- because they had nothing to go back to, or perhaps hoping to make it big someday eventually by some turn of fate or on the power of one’s own efforts.

Meanwhile the city was suffocating with the exodus, the original inhabitants were mad at the new encroachers on their jobs, public spaces and transport. They were branded ‘Laloo’s people’, the city politicians wanted to close the gates of the city by issuing passports and photo ids, but ultimately chose to demolish their huts. Popular schemes to provide meals at minimal prices (junka bhakri) was also floated for this new section of the city poor which ultimately turned out into just another fast-food joints for the lower middle-class.

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This story of a country with few breads for too many mouths are recounted by filthy clothes and fear-packed eyes, by people on the pavements and streetlights, languishing in despair, going insane, sometimes drugging themselves with cheap substances, beaten away by the police constables off the railway platforms and off private property. They sleep on dirty streets, survive on thrown-away food, are chased by city dogs, raped and assaulted by insensitive citizens (there are a good number of women too), beaten up by the public for petty trespasses.

There is no protection of Law or the Constitution available for this section of people. Someone finds them dead on the streets one morning and informs the Municipality to get rid of the dead body.

Meanwhile, some throw a coin and vanish. Some assault. Some pass by not having the nerve to look at this other-side of life…