Living on the fringe

You quite often come across beggars, eunuchs, vendors, and also those kids of a lesser god in a train. Something akin to this aged around 10 years passed me while I was seated in the comfort of the air-conditioned compartment of the Delhi bound Karnataka express.

He wasn’t extraordinary to have caught up my attention but something lingered in my head after seeing him. Something that didn’t let him slither away unnoticed. After all he had an amputated leg and a lost hope lurking in his uncertain eyes. He cleaned up my compartment and many others, with his black shirt that once was white.  After he had swept the floor and succeeded in collecting alms from the passengers, I followed him outside the comfort of my air-conditioned compartment.

He lifted his head up with a barren gaze in his deeply embedded eyes. Nullifying this desolation is his communicable smile, a gesture of triumph over the undying despair of his state. Returning back a smile I asked for his name. I asked him again, breaking his quirks. He was shy at first but blurted out his name.

‘Anu’ it is. ‘Why would you name yourself after a girl?’ was my next doubt, ‘It’s actually Anees,’ he quickly exclaimed. He symbolised a face of an unending struggle. Anees and many like him have been part of a system that ostensibly talks about safeguarding the rights of children. He portrayed those thousands living on hope that has been damaged due to false promises. Despite his crippled state, he had optimism in his stance with the confidence to survive.

My questions were direct. I asked him if he was, by any means, forced in this occupation and whether his leg was surgically cut-off, just like in the similar cases of beggary. Unconvinced with his answers, I pressed for the truth again. However, he stood his ground and explained what led to this state.

His father was an alcoholic. He succumbed to cirrhosis of liver and left behind, a wife and two children, to fend for themselves. Anees’s brother did not do anything for a living and so did his mother, leaving this one-legged urchin the sole bread earner for the entire family. Anees was scavenging for plastic bottles when he had his left leg crushed under the wheels of a train, also fracturing the family’s only hope of survival.

Triumphant, after gifting a leg to his fate, here he was crawling his way in the bustling compartments. A meagre 100-200 rupees per day is what he managed from begging. People are not always philanthropic, he was abused and cursed most of the times. His efforts made him contented of feeding his family. He even chewed gutka and had no plans to quit whatsoever because of his addiction at such an early age.

Anees, and many just like him find it tough to exist in this country. Many of them succumb to their injuries and misery. Nobody asks for a nobody. Their survival is non-existent to the people living in the higher strata. A peek into their lives shows the apathy with which these lives struggle for existence. Many go unnoticed and only a few ‘lucky’ ones like Anees, manage to arouse curiosity.