CHENNAI: For a majority of people, beaches and skies have an aesthetic appeal, whereas for an insignificant section of people, it’s a place to eke out a living. From the hinterlands of Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Delhi, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, this section, we call ‘migrants’ have found places for themselves — on roadsides, pavements, under the bridges, bus stands, and local railway stations. Amid searing summers, unexpected rains, and external threats, they scramble to feed themselves each day.
For a group of people, there is no fear of intrusion on the large strip of sands of Marina, nor threats of goons feigning friendliness and dragging the kids by their hands, no fake promises of taking the kids to “home” or “hostel” to have a better life. Under the wide canopy of scattered blue and orange evening sky, Dhanush, a little boy, goes behind people, asking if they would buy at least one keychain from him.
After earning a meagre amount of Rs 10 or Rs 20, he goes to his mother, hands over the change and then goes back to his work. Dhanush has been travelling around with his mother and acquiring the skills of this “non-profitable trade” — repeatedly pleading with people to “buy one”. Some days, Dhanush returns with no money, whereas on some days, he excitedly runs to his mother, flapping the notes in the air.
Dhanush and other kids from his locality in Tiruchy, along with their mothers, come to Chennai on some weekends; they buy safety pins, slides, mirrors, earrings, and bindis from Parry’s Corner, and go around selling them. Bound by the shackles of caste-based work, Meena*, a friend of Dhanush’s mother, who is a ragpicker, says, “Being from a low-caste community, we have inherited only this trade from our parents. We are Narikurava (an indigenous tribe), we are kaatuvaasi.
Despite these kids going to school, they hear comments like they are not decent, they will remain like this forever.” Meena, too, has started believing that the kids from this community are destined to continue carrying the load of their inherited work and wouldn’t get a job. She says, “We don’t trust anyone.
Be it Tiruchy or Chennai, our kids aren’t safe anywhere.” Unaware of the persistent menace of thugs and the impending danger of falling into the trap of trafficking, kids like Dhanush walk around unbothered, with the sole aim of bringing in money to their mothers.
Towards the road, another family — four children accompanying their mother— sells lanterns on the pavement, and this is their sole source of income. Hailing from Bihar, this family has been in Chennai for the past 15 years. With the hope to eke out a living, have a good education for children, and have a better life, they settled here. Chennai has become a second home for them, but, this business hasn’t been a rewarding one for many.
When Elliot’s beach swells with the crowd in the evenings, children with lanterns, toys, ballons, and keychains, scatter on the pavements, and echoes of “akka, akka, 50 ruba akka” ring from all directions. Trudging through the stubborn sands, the kids know no other way other than standing beside a visitor until they are shooed away. But each day, with the hope that they might sell their goods, or get some change or some leftover snacks, they step out of their dwellings.
Alisha Bano, who is not sure how old she is, says she came here from the streets of Mumbai. She points towards the fringes of the road and says she lives there. On a small patch of sand, with the tip of her fingers, she carves the alphabet ‘A’ with a perceptible joy on her face. She then says, “We make these lanterns at home.
We buy the laces, put these lights inside the bottles, and wrap the laces around it.” Sitting alone in a corner, eating chocolate that someone gave her out of sympathy, she says, “Yaha sab log hein, meri behen bhi hai. Humlog sab raat 11.30 baje ghar jaate hai. (My acquaintances are here, my sister is also here. We all go back home at 11.30 pm.)”
Steering slightly away from the conversation, her face glows up as she says, “I dress up, do makeup, and look really pretty on Eid.” Among the little joys, she looks forward to this day of festivity. But what struck me was what she said at the end, with no trace of worry, “No one buys this (lantern) from me.”
She then walks around looking for her younger sister (maybe 4 years old), who with her friend from Delhi, was busy eating food that someone had bought her. Their evenings are usually about asking people if they could buy them food. Some days, they fill their stomachs with these small snacks they get from the visitors, and some days are just about roaming around without even one morsel of food.
Umer, who helps his mother in selling the lanterns and conga drums, says he came from Uttar Pradesh. After school, he and his sister Athifa go around finding potential buyers and persuading them to buy their goods. Their mother, Suman, says, “Lanterns weren’t fetching us much money. So their (kids’) father started making these drums.
The kids go on foot selling and with the money they get, we buy food.” With a tone of relief, she says, “Sometimes, some visitors give these kids something to eat.” The conversation on food kept cropping up while talking to Suman and her kids. When asked about school, Umer says that there is free food at school. While his mother continued to talk about their struggles to pay the rent and sustain themselves, Umer interrupted saying the house was full of water.
“It has been pouring and during this time, our house gets flooded.” Without paying much heed to all these troubles, Suman says sending her children to school is a thought of comfort, and a ray of hope, a permission to dream for a better life. What change will school education bring to these children’s lives is an uncertainty.
Beside one of the bustling roads surrounding the Central Railway Station, amid a group of women selling cut fruits, there was a little girl wearing a frock with blotches of stain. The five-year-old Angel owns this spot on the pavement where she plays alone every evening.
She nodded her head and said “yes” when I asked if she went to school. She points at a woman lying down on a white tarpaulin sheet and says she is her mother. The kid goes to a baalawadi (kindergarten) in Perumbakkam. After her baalawadi, her grandmother picks her up from the school and brings her to Central, where Angel’s playtime begins.
The information that Angel goes to baalawadi, hints at progress, but she says she doesn’t like her teacher. Her mother, while sipping her tea, says “The teacher beats her. Whenever she wants to go to the toilet, they would send her back. The teacher even beats her if she doesn’t eat her food.” Sadness loomed when she said, “I am worried that my kid is not treated well at school.”
The lurking worry of being trapped in the situation they are in overpowers the sprouts of hope hinged on their children being beneficiaries of government schools. I now think of the conversation I had with a group of children some time ago — they said they slept under the open sky, on the roadsides. While there are children who have roofs over their houses, there is a section of destitute children who have never stayed in a space with four walls and a roof. The city, today, has many such pockets harbouring these innocuous lives, who just go on with their routine without any qualms.
*Name changed