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Looting the Rajdhani
Part Four of a Series on India's Street Children, the 'Sadak Chhaps'
 Listen to Julian Crandall Hollick's story.
A boy named Santosh 'cleans' a railway car.
Photo: Martine Crandall-Hollick |
June 2, 2002 -- Julian Crandall Hollick and his four young companions hurried to leave the Rajdhani Express' pantry car without being seen. If the kids were caught, they might be hauled off to one of Mumbai's "remand homes." They were carrying glass bottles, scraps of food and other goodies they had found.
"Freeeeze!" bellowed a policeman whose large frame suddenly blocked the car's only exit, and the freedom that lay beyond it in the busy Bombay Central railway station.
The group was, Hollick says, "well and truly trapped."
Luckily, Hollick was able to talk his way past the befuddled and angry cop, and the kids -- all of them street children who make their living by scrounging for castoffs -- were safe for at least one more day.
Zuzu reports for cleaning duty.
Photo: Martine Crandall-Hollick |
"Indian railway stations are all about possibilities," says Hollick. But possibilities are limited for these kids -- the Sadak Chhaps or "Stamp of the Street."
In this last part of Hollick's four-part series on the Sadak Chhap, we meet Kuldip, an 11-year-old boy who, like all his cohorts, lives by his wits and by the age-transcendent street smarts he has acquired.
Kuldip, Hollick says, "fits the stereotype of a street kid. He's small -- maybe 4-foot-6. Clothes, skin, hair are all variations of the color black. He's got a buccaneer's swagger to his walk. There are no flies on Kuldip -- he's nobody's fool."
Kuldip, Aparna, Shebana, and Kumar wait for a train at Bombay Central.
Photo: Martine Crandall-Hollick |
By scrounging for glass, metal and other recyclables, he earns about 5 rupees (approximately 10 cents) a day.
"It's not enough," he says. "But what else to do?"
Kuldip's background is much like many of his companions. He left home at age 9, fleeing his abusive, alcoholic father. And yet, his aim is to go back. "I won't do this forever," he says.
But doesn't he at least feel free -- with no responsibilities except to keep himself alive, and a whole city in which to roam?
"The moment I collect some money, I'll go back home. This is not freedom."
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Other Resources
 The organization Voice (Voluntary Organization in Community Enterprise) calls India's remand homes "a lost cause"
Sound, photos, and video of India's railways.
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