Sunday, January 10, 2010

Losing what i had:

Rajesh was a small time vendor who used to sell old books outside the local railway station. A police squad out on arresting the probable beggars in the city asked him to sit in the van. On contesting and asking why, he is being told that he’ll be left after some questions in the police station. Fearing the police, he sits in the van, while his shop is left unattended there on the pavement.
However, he is not left as promised to him. Instead he is taken to the court on the beggary charges. There he is not given any chance to speak; in fact, he is not even produced before the magistrate and sent on remand to beggars home. There he is made to stay for 14 days in inhumane conditions. Nobody from his family is informed about the incident. Neither was he allowed to make any calls to them or to any lawyer.
After his remand period is over, he is left as he was found not to be a beggar. But on reaching the station he finds that nothing was there, which was quite obvious.
After three days of hunger, he started working at a small tea stall at the station itself. Once he had the dignity of running his own business, although small, but today he is serving tea and washing used glasses and utensils.

1 comment:

Shilpa said...

Hi Tarique Sir.... I stumbled upon the blog today... please continue writing. There is very very little that people outside know about beggary and homelessness.