When we started about a decade back, we knew that the area we were entering into was largely unexplored and therefore would require lot of patience and strategic flexibility to learn and unlearn but little did we know about the scale of unpredictability.
We thought we were into the subject but the nature of destitution is so complex that you tend to enter the dangerous zones of forming opinions very swiftly. I’m calling it dangerous because you see a person who has been on the street for his entire life and still hopeful of getting back to his family somewhere sometime, on the other hand you have a person who is happily settled into the life where he is continuously dependant on others. For him it is the only way of living.
People were always talking about the so called ‘syndicate’ of beggars. In our two years of close association with the people who are into begging, we are yet to encounter such organised grouping. What we have seen is informal and unstable living patterns where people are coming together but its more for the fulfilment of that basic element of life, which we all call as ‘emotions’ than because of any economic motives.
Somebody who is seen as an exploiter through the eyes of social worker could be the only support available to the perceived exploited person. Many people encountered us by saying that we are doing irrelevant stuff because these people on street don’t really deserve the care and protection. According to these friends, the homeless person is homeless because he wants to be one. Destitute is begging because its easy money for him and he doesn’t want to work but same people kept quiet when we asked them if they are ready to appoint such people to work,? If they are,we’ll provide them with willing people.
Life is nothing short of puzzle and a very strange one. How else do you explain the complex web of human relations? The cases that we dealt with brought out so many different aspects of life. As we moved deeper, different realities of life were unfolded. People lied to us but those lies were the truth of their lives’. There were several factors leading to state of homelessness but breaking down of the family ties emerged as one of the biggest contributing factor to homelessness and destitution.
We thought we were into the subject but the nature of destitution is so complex that you tend to enter the dangerous zones of forming opinions very swiftly. I’m calling it dangerous because you see a person who has been on the street for his entire life and still hopeful of getting back to his family somewhere sometime, on the other hand you have a person who is happily settled into the life where he is continuously dependant on others. For him it is the only way of living.
People were always talking about the so called ‘syndicate’ of beggars. In our two years of close association with the people who are into begging, we are yet to encounter such organised grouping. What we have seen is informal and unstable living patterns where people are coming together but its more for the fulfilment of that basic element of life, which we all call as ‘emotions’ than because of any economic motives.
Somebody who is seen as an exploiter through the eyes of social worker could be the only support available to the perceived exploited person. Many people encountered us by saying that we are doing irrelevant stuff because these people on street don’t really deserve the care and protection. According to these friends, the homeless person is homeless because he wants to be one. Destitute is begging because its easy money for him and he doesn’t want to work but same people kept quiet when we asked them if they are ready to appoint such people to work,? If they are,we’ll provide them with willing people.
Life is nothing short of puzzle and a very strange one. How else do you explain the complex web of human relations? The cases that we dealt with brought out so many different aspects of life. As we moved deeper, different realities of life were unfolded. People lied to us but those lies were the truth of their lives’. There were several factors leading to state of homelessness but breaking down of the family ties emerged as one of the biggest contributing factor to homelessness and destitution.
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