HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL

By M H Ahssan

At the risk of romanticising the hardships faced by street children, a child rights activist shares her favourite story about a 12-year-old, pint-sized boy named Rajan (his street name) who dreams big. Living off the streets of Hyderabad for the last three years, he may not know where he would get his day’s meal from but is sure that he has perfected his dance steps well enough to become a choreographer some day. That he was abused physically and sexually on the streets of the city or that he was tortured by his alcoholic father and abusive stepmother for years forcing him to leave his home did not scar his dream. He continues to watch dance shows on the telly, hoping he would be there one day himself.

There are an estimated 45,000 street children in Hyderabad, who sleep under the stars every night but dream of that one big dramatic moment that could change their lives, much like the crorepati moment of Jamaal in Slumdog Millionaire. And that hope keeps them going, making them survivors on mean streets.

“They have a bindaas attitude and a great hope that something will happen that would change their lives,’’ says Mohd Rafiuddin, director of Hyderabad Council of Human Welfare, who goes on to share the story of a nineyear-old who fled from home after his parents’ death and went through every possible drill of a ‘new’ street child. From being abused to getting addicted to drugs, the child was soon a veteran in the ways of street life only to wean away from it all to realise his dream of doing something good. While an NGO intervention helped in this case, Rafiuddin says that in many cases children who do not get much help are still able to get their lives back on track themselves.

Activists share that from nursing ambitions of becoming a pilot to finally making it as waiters in pizza outlets or as office boys, children of the streets never really lose hope. “Their main ambition in most cases is to go back home with money to improve the lives of their families,’’ shares an activist.

Some turn exploitative situations to their advantage. Take the case of a boy working at a tea stall for many years who realised that he must explore cooking beyond brewing tea. Fortunately for him, there was a dramatic moment indeed when as part of a Corporate Social Responsibility initiative, he got a chance to learn cooking and is now on his way to assist a senior chef in a star hotel in Mumbai. “There is this emotional resilience, an inner strength and an inherent capacity to strive through stress and storm. They always look at the positive side of life,’’ says child rights activist Dr Nilima Mehta, who shares the tea stall boy’s story as a case in point.

Isidore Phillips, director Divya Disha, notes that the most amazing part of street children is their ability to learn, fast. “A boy came to Hyderabad, was raped on the streets, fled the city only to return later. He knows the boy who had abused him but he is now surviving on the street,’’ Phillips says, adding that children on the streets learn how to fend for themselves.

He goes on to share the story of a boy who spent his childhood on railway platforms and went on to become a police constable. “They are smart and have the instinct to achieve. They have the go-getter attitude,” he says.Well, they don’t call them street smart for nothing.