Little joy for capital’s other half

NEW DELHI - The other half of the capital who were denied access to the glitzy venues of New Year eve parties in lighted mansions and five-star hotels huddled on the chilly streets with bonfires, packets of junk food, cheap liquor and and a bit of compassion.

For those who did not have anyone to party with even on the streets, it was just another freezing night under a threadbare blanket on the road sides and in makeshift shelters.

In a dark corner of South Extension Part 1, just outside the windows of sprawling lifestyle stores and jewellery shops, 17-year-old Ram Shankar and five of his teenage friends, who push carts for a living, lit a small bonfire with dry maize stalks and leaves to celebrate the close of 2009.

Between them were three packets of potato wafers, a bottle of Coca Cola, a pack of beedis and lots of goodwill, but little cash because of a lull in business.

The boys belong to a village in north Bihar near Kishanganj.

Every year for the past seven years we have been partying in our own little way on the street side, Ram Shankar told IANS. The group exchanged notes on the day’s earnings, broke into Bhojpuri songs at the stroke of midnight and talked about their home in Bihar.

Seventy-year-old Anand Bihari, a tsunami survivor from Kerala, did not have anyone to share his joy with. Anand, a resident of Asshray Adhikar Abhiyan, an old age home near the Old Delhi Railway station, mourned the family he lost in the tsunami in silence Thursday night.

I have been here for the past four years since I left home in 2005 soon after the tsunami struck the coast and devastated my village in Kerala. I lost my home and my family to the storm. I went around the country looking for shelter and a job - but after one year, I realised that no one was ready to give me a job. I begged for a year and then found shelter here, Bihari told IANS.

For 67-year-old Roshan Lal, another inmate of the Asshray Adhikar Abhiyan, his New Year Eve’s incentive was money for a meal from his employer and a few minutes on a mobile borrowed from the owner of the shop where he works to talk to his family.

Cart-pusher Krishna Murti who came to the capital from Agra in 2008 met his son after four months Thursday. The reunion was nostalgic. My son, a daily wage earner, had been saving money to come to Delhi. We went round the city and saw all the historical relics, Murti told IANS.

The week since Christmas has been tough for 250 homeless children of the Salaam Balak Trust, a non-profit organisation that provides shelter and vocational training to 250 inmates of a destitute boys’ home and supports 3,000 street children in the capital.

There were no celebrations at the boys’ home managed by the trust in Old Delhi.

We have been almost going around with a begging bowl over the last month as we lost 50 percent of our funding during the year as our donors in the US and UK stopped contributing because of the economic slowdown, social activist-filmmaker Sanjoy Roy, who is associated with the trust, told IANS.

Our annual budget is Rs.2.2 crore, but we could only raise Rs.60 lakh. This month we were down to our lifeline of Rs.500,000. It was difficult to take care of the kids. We even thought of shutting down several training centres, Roy said.

He hoped that the trust would be able to raise enough funds this year.

New Year’s Eve in general was a bleak affair for the 100,000 homeless people, mostly men, in the capital with shrinking incomes and a paucity of night shelters.

Unlike previous years, the number of street parties and way side bonfires were few - and the bonhomie was missing.

Night shelters accommodate a maximum of 7,000 people which is only a fraction of the homeless. The rest of the destitute have nowhere to go, but occupy the pavements. The good samaritans have all disappeared, an official of Asshray Adhikar Abhiyan told IANS.

However, exceptions like MSAAS - an NGO - made up for the sense of desolation that gripped the other half in the capital over the last week.

The organisation, which rehabilitates child labourers and street children - hosted an open party at the New Delhi Railway station.