Homeless people take shelter at a bus stop at Banjara Hills | (R Satish Babu | EPS)
Homeless people take shelter at a bus stop at Banjara Hills | (R Satish Babu | EPS)

As the sun goes down, their struggle to survive begins in Hyderabad

Close to midnight, people can be seen walking out of RK Complex in Banjara Hills, most of them back from the second show at PVR Cinemas.

HYDERABAD: Close to midnight, people can be seen walking out of RK Complex in Banjara Hills, most of them back from the second show at PVR Cinemas. While they are off to retire for the day and the shopping mall is ready to call it a night, the bus stop on the opposite side springs to action as people try to find a space to sleep on the pavement.

Dismantled cartons form beds, bundles of belongings double up for pillows and disfigured bottles and cans filled with water assure them they wouldn’t sleep on empty stomachs. Once they settle down, begins the wait for food. A wait for some good Samaritan or NGO to offer something to eat, a wait for drivers to unload leftovers from their sahab’s parties. Clutching their plates, all they do is wait at the bus stop in front of a makeshift bonfire to brave the cold.

The scene is no different on new year’s eve. As the sun goes down, scores of people are left with nowhere to go. No. They are not rag pickers, beggars or homeless. They have come to the city for multiple reasons, and a job tops the list. For 20-year-old Emmanual from Macherla in Guntur, sleeping on the bus stop outside LVP Eye Institute with his mother Suvarna and younger brother Prabhakar, is the only option. The family of three has been spending their days here for four days now.

They leave the place at 7 am, go to the labour adda looking for work, and return to the same place after 10 pm. Success in finding work is not guaranteed. The boy, wearing three shirts one over the other to brave the cold winds, had accompanied his mother and brother to the city to attend to his grandmother who was admitted in a hospital here. When the cash they carried was exhausted, they were left with no option other then spending their nights at the bus stop.

“If nothing works, we extend our arms for alms. We need to stay here for a few days and then go home once everything is done,” he says, hinting at his grandmother’s treatment. Among these residents of the streets, a 36-year-old man with no particular belonging, says in fluent English: “Multiple reasons have brought me on the streets. I will go back only after finding a job.”

V Anil Kumar is a B Com graduate from Karimnagar. He once worked as a taxi driver before joining as an assistant in a government office. After he left his wife and daughter in Karimnagar, he married again in the city here. “Earlier this year, I met with an accident. I was in hospital for three months and when I returned, my wife had vacated our rented apartment and left. My frequent ailments took away a major portion of savings and for the last two months I am on the streets,” explained Kumar.

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