Another chapter began in my continuing exploration of rootlessness, on the 25th of May, 2009. This was the day I began a class for a bunch of ragpicker children, who live near my home in Faizabad, in huts made with stretched polyester fibre sacking over frames of slender bamboo shavings. These huts are sprawled around a central hand pump - the sole water supply source for a community of nearly a hundred.
My relationship with the children began like this: I would go to the neighbourhood shop and encounter a few of them at a time, buying sweets or matches or something. I would smile and talk to them, and have the occasional answer. The locals avoided these people because they are the kind that fall into the category of 'Bangladeshi migrants' according to our more nationalist parties. In simple terms, they are Muslim families from Bengal, Assam and Bangladesh, who have lost all land and means of livelihood where they come from, and must, of necessity, come to cling on for survival in cities like Mumbai, Kolkata, Delhi, and yes, even third tier towns like Faizabad, Uttar Pradesh.
Anyway, the children began noticing me from the encounters at the shop, and because I was dispensing blankets in the winter (I confess - few things feel better than to hand out those rough woolen rectangles to hands calloused and reddened with the cold!). Gradually, a pattern of greeting and smiling developed between us. As my relationship turmoil increased at home, and I began to grapple with a familiar, deep-dark-bottom-of-the-well-loneliness in an unfamiliar and often most unattractive landscape, the children began reaching out in ways that was balm for my spirit.
Having absolutely no occasion to dress up for months on end, and having completely forgotten the taste of city delicacies like chicken sandwiches (!) I would one day wear a saree in utter desperation, just to go to the market and buy a few fruits. Walking back, the bolder girls among the ragpickers would meet me half-way and declare, "You look so nice in a saree!" Since the seed of loneliness is merely a fear of not being needed or noticed by anybody at all, this form of being noticed was very welcome in my fragile state. I was grateful to the children.
And now I have a class of them among the refuse - the clear plastic disposable tumblers, plastic bags, old shoes, torn notebooks, and all manner of urban debris that forms their landscape, its contours changing with towayays and fresh loads, but depressingly similar in its basic theme of things that need to be thrown away. As I try to engage them with modeling clay and crayon, slate and chalk, mime and rhyme, sometimes the pitiful inadequacy of my work does strike me - finding a naked toddler casually handling a naked razor blade is common, or having a member of my class show off with a huge plastic bag stretched over his head. An infant is freshly bathed and placed back in the slush around the hand pump. A sick child has been having the chills and trembling for days.
But amidst all this are the individual characters of each member of the class, now clearly emerging after a couple of weeks. Some children are so engaging and show such a delightful response to everything, that it is a wrench to say bye to them! To balance these, are the characters who swear loudly and claw at each other in regular fights. Something is always bringing me back to reality. Neither my assistant Lakshmi nor I can afford to float along on a wave of warm sentiment. And yet, the reason I want to do the work at all is because of the affection and gratitude I feel for these throwaway kids, my companions in displacement.
As they pick within the garbage, they find gleaming bangles, a child's beautiful rattle, a notebook with almost new pages. "There's treasure if you look for it" is something they need to believe if they must have any enthusiasm at all for the day's tasks. I am doing all I can to believe and keep on looking.
