Such a long journey

During the pandemic, photographer Vicky Roy (above) and actor Pankaj Gupta built a pool of Rs 1.5 lakh with the help of the Salaam Balak Trust, to help other SBT alumni who couldn't make rent or needed small loans of up to Rs5,000 to tide over. (File image: Facebook/ Vicky Roy)

Vicky Roy, a well-known photographer, and Pankaj Gupta, a theatre director and actor you may have spotted in the cult movie Oye Lucky, Lucky Oye, were busy helping people in need during the pandemic with the meagre funds they were able to collect. Meanwhile, Gaurav,  a 12th grader, was teaching schoolchildren in a shelter how to use computers.

Before setting up support systems for people in need, these young enterprising givers shared two common threads in life – a childhood full of crises, and the railway platform as their bed. Today they stand as shining examples of how children once relegated to the margins of the social fabric can become productive and contributing members of society, if given the right opportunities, and a little support at the right time.

These heroes recount their life-experiences to reflect on what broke them and what built them, and why an 18-year-old is not truly a grown-up in India.

Invisible experiences of India’s children

Frustrated with poverty and skirmishes with his elder brother, Gaurav ran away as a child from village Beena in Madhya Pradesh. “I just climbed on to whatever train came to the station one afternoon. The next evening, I got off when the train stopped at Mathura. At the station, a bunch of kids – some older, some younger – saw me alone and befriended me. They gave me food and water And I started working with them at the station. We would basically get onto trains, pick up used plastic bottles and then get off the train,” said Gaurav.

Mathura railway station was home to Gaurav for four-five months. “Once I was getting on to a train that had slowed down to halt. It had rained and the stairs were slippery. I slipped and fell into the space between the platform and the running train. In the space between, the loose shirt I was wearing that was tucked into my shorts and my body at the back, four-five empty water bottles were hanging. This is my end I thought as I lay still in the small space between the  train and the platform edge,” Gaurav recalls, as he cried out for help at the noisy station where people were scrambling to get on and off.

He was finally saved by a Railway Police official, who took him to the medical centre, “My eyes were wounded and there were wounds all over my back. Over the next few days, my friends at the railway station took me to a private hospital for the dressing. But there was a dearth of money for treatment; and they started advising me to go back home,” remembers Gaurav. Determined to not head home, Gaurav took a train to Delhi.

At Delhi railway station, Gaurav was rescued by a team that ran a shelter in Lajpat Nagar. “They got me treated – those were days when my shirt used to stick to wounds on my back. They asked for my address while counselling. In a few months, my mother arrived with a neighbour and took me back to the village,” said Gaurav.

Back at home in the village, there was no food, which prompted Gauray to run away again, taking the train to Delhi via Mathura. In Delhi, Gaurav managed to get work with a wallet-maker. But feeling claustrophobic in his congested workplace, he returned to look for a livelihood at Delhi Railway Station. A GRP official there gave him a choice: he could try staying at Salaam Baalak Trust’s facility or head back home if he didn’t like it there.

Gaurav is now studying nautical science at VELS Institute of Science Technology and Advanced Studies, Chennai.
***

Many years older than Gaurav, Vicky’s story started in Purulia, West Bengal, where he was one of seven children. Beaten harshly by his grandmother, he left Purulia at the age of 11. Vicky hoped that he would become an actor one day. “My friends told me, 'Once in the city, you can become a hero,'” recalls Vicky.

Instead, he landed up at a local dhaba (eatery) on the platform in Delhi, where some of his most difficult days were to follow. In the five-six months on the train platform, Vicky said he would collect drinking water bottles from the railway station, fill those bottles with cold water and sell them in “general” non-AC compartments.

While on the railway platform, he also had to bear the brunt of wounds inflicted by sharp blades (razor) from other children bullying him. Such incidents pushed Vicky to look for work at a food outlet near the railway station, where his job was to do the dishes. It was from this outlet that he was saved.
***

Mohammad Shameem ran away from Madhupur, in Jharkhand, to New Delhi when he was 11. “My father wanted me to study in a Madrasa, which required me to stay away from the family. Once when I was being taken back to school from home, I ran off and took a train to Delhi, as a lot of people from my village travelled to Delhi for work,” recalls Shameem.

He thought he would find his village acquaintances after arriving in New Delhi, just like he could find them in his village. Little did he realise that New Delhi was a large city. “I stepped out of the station, saw so many vehicles and went back,” Shameem recollects. Dizzy with fear, he survived the next three days on water, with nothing to eat.

“I saw a man asking a lot of people around the station, 'Will you work?' I just went and said…'yes!'  He asked, 'What work can you do beta (son)?'" recalls Shameem. He tagged along with the man to Meerut and worked on an agricultural field for three years. “They were good people and they looked after me though there were no payments and the work on the field used to be tough, like collecting water from a tubewell at 3 am,” said Shameem who eventually ran away to Delhi with no money. The railway station was closest to what he could call home, but he was caught without a ticket by a ticket checker (TTE), slapped hard and thrown out.

“Standing outside the station, near a peepal tree, I was approached by a man who asked me, 'Will you study?". I said 'Yes,' Shameem recalls saying, even as doubts clouded his mind. “Would I end up like one of the children whose stories we often heard, with my hands and legs chopped off?”

Puppeteer Mohd Shameem ran away from home and came to Delhi when he was 11.
***

Stuck in poverty and with a father battling with alcoholism, Pankaj worked in a dhaba at Jhinjhak in Uttar Pradesh when he was first rescued by the Salaam Baalak Trust (SBT). “There, in 1998, I started attending school without admission and topped in a school exam. I could take that exam because another student with the same name as mine was absent.”

However, Pankaj left the Trust with his father who was attempting to make a fresh start in Firozabad. In Firozabad, Pankaj, as a child, worked in a bangle factory during the day to get some money for the family, after which he also sold “bhelpuri” on the streets.

“When I worked in the bangle factories, I did not at that time realise the hazardous circumstances that I was working in,” says Pankaj. Unfortunately, his father slipped back to being an alcoholic, and the situation in his home worsened. Beaten by his father, Pankaj decided to move back to SBT.

He spent a day in the railway station at Firozabad thinking of the consequences if he were to move to Delhi. When he finally took a train to Delhi, without a ticket, he saw a TTE (train ticket examiner) approaching and got ready to jump off the train. Fortunately, the TTE had to turn back, and Pankaj changed his mind.

Before reaching Delhi, he got off at Ghaziabad station, a suburban city near New Delhi, when a hermit in the train told him that the train goes to Old Delhi and not New Delhi. “I did not know that Old Delhi was near New Delhi. So, I got off at Ghaziabad to take a train to New Delhi.”

Having arrived at New Delhi railway station, Pankaj, who remembered the route to SBT, but not the exact address, spent the night outside the railway station after he was asked by the police to leave the station. A few hours into the night, he saw a gang of elderly boys approaching menacingly, which prompted him to flee the place fearing abuse.

The great escape

Gaurav is today studying nautical science at VELS Institute of Science Technology and Advanced Studies, Chennai. Life gave him a second chance in 2010, when he joined the DMRC Salaam Baalak Shelter Home Facility at Tis Hazari, where he got admission in an “English medium government school” in Pratap Nagar. “Life was good. Around 2012, I got good marks in school and was selected to enroll in Lawrence School Sanawar, where I joined in class 5,” said Gaurav. “I loved the colourful lockers. I scored good marks and also started playing basketball, cricket, soccer, hockey, squash, shooting,” he said.

Gaurav was chosen to play for the school cricket team. “In the first game, I only served water. Then, in a match in Shimla, we reached the finals, where we needed seven runs and I scored a six. I clearly remember the headmaster announcing – Gaurav from class 8.”

Gaurav wanted to join the Army and take the NDA exam but by the time he found out how, he had crossed the age limit. He then decided on a career in the Merchant Navy. He supplemented his studies from YouTube and Byju’s online learning but his class 12th board exams were cancelled due to the pandemic.

Then he searched for a reputed university and met the director of VELS, who offered a partial waiver of the tuition fee. The rest of his fee is being sponsored by SBT.

“Studies here are fun. There are lots of practicals, which I thoroughly enjoy. After all, it is my studies that helped me stand out,” he says with a hint of pride, recalling an anecdote at the Lajpat Nagar shelter. “Once they were asking everyone to press their thumb impressions. When my turn came, I asked for a pen to sign my name. You should have seen the surprise on their face,” he says, smiling.
***

A giant puppet made by Shameem, now an established puppeteer and puppet maker, graced the Republic Day parade this year. A new life opened up for Shameem as he found his calling in puppetry, puppet making, papier mache and theatre. It was around the same time he started paying attention to studies. When he turned 18, Ishara Puppet Theatre had bagged a three-year project on HIV AIDS prevention. His first job, somewhere around the mid-2000s, came with a salary of Rs 3,250 per month.

Since then, Shameem has done shows for Katha Puppet Trust, and Ishara Puppet Theatre, after which he set up his own unit - Puppet Shala art group. Having travelled abroad for shows, Shameem has today bought a house in Delhi, married, and was blessed with a baby a few months back.

As Shameem looks back, he recalls a moment of pride in 2003, when he visited his village after six years, where people, including those from his family, had given up hope on him. But when Shameem saw his house in a dilapidated condition he thought “It’s time I did something about this. It’s time I took charge.”

From 'About Ram', a Katkatha Puppet Arts Trust production.
***

Vicky’s journey to become an acclaimed photographer was also aided by the Salaam Baalak Trust, a not-for-profit for street children founded by filmmaker Mira Nair, who had made the movie Salaam Bombay based on the lives of street children and Mumbai's railway stations. Vicky sought training in photography upon realising that studies were not his cup of tea.

Subsequently, he found many mentors who helped him hone his skills. His talent was polished as he trained at Triveni Kala Sangam in Delhi, and he was given an opportunity to apprentice under photographer Anay Mann. The British High Commissioner supported him in hosting his first solo exhibition.

Bigger successes followed and international recognition chased Vicky as he was selected by the US-based Maybach Foundation to document the reconstruction of the World Trade Centre in New York in 2008. Vicky also received an MIT Media Fellowship in 2014 and was selected in the list of Forbes Asia 30 under 30 in 2016.

Photographer Vicky Roy was rescued from a dhaba, where he washed dishes.
***

Pankaj Gupta, 32, is a theatre teacher, artist and has worked in several movies. He takes theatre classes at the Salaam Baalak Trust (SBT) and was a performer in the Broadway-style Kingdom of Dreams in Gurugram. His life changed in SBT and he got trained in theatre and drama. “For doing nukkad natak, I even gave up going to movies, where we would have been given food,” he said. His mentors include eminent theatre director Kapil Dev and Rajiv Gaur Singh. Alongside theatre, Pankaj performs across mediums: street plays, dance, proscenium theatre, playback theatre.

He also works with children at his alma-mater SBT, having independently directed several plays since 2015. The names of two of these plays say it all: “Anokha Safar” and “Street Dreams”.

Support systems during the pandemic 

During the pandemic, Vicky started documenting the lives of disabled children across the country, a project that he is pursuing “voluntarily”. Also in the midst of the pandemic, Vicky and his friends realised that many of the SBT alumni needed help. They started a chain by lending these people amounts of up to Rs 5,000.

“Many of our friends could not pay rent and were hit by challenges of various kinds. So, we lent them the money and asked them to repay whenever they could,” says Vicky. Pankaj and Vicky built a pool of Rs 1.5 lakh with the help of SBT to dip into for such exigencies.

Gaurav was studying for his class 12 when the lockdown was announced. Schools were shut and his exams were cancelled. Not one to be deterred, he used the time to teach rescued children at the shelter how to use computers.

“Even though I had crossed 18 years, I was allowed to stay at the home for some time, even when that’s the age when you have to move out of a shelter home,” recalls Gaurav.

Also read: Rags to Forbes: This photographer once survived on people’s leftover food

The age of 'childscence'

This difficult dilemma of transitioning to the outer world when at 18 you are supposed to move out but are not ready to do so was felt by many others. “When one attains the age of 18 years and is expected to be independent and leave the shelter, suddenly reality hits. Saare sapne choor ho jaate hain” (all your dreams are shattered)” says Vicky. Pankaj echoes the need to have some arrangement to support ‘children above 18 years’, most of whom are yet to find their first job. Vicky, too, hopes that the Government will bring in some welfare measures to support such ‘childescents’ when they turn 18 years and are expected to support themselves.

It is these voices that should also help policy-makers build pathways for millions of children found on railway platforms and the streets of India. “These children are no different. Given the right opportunities, they can excel in different fields,” says Vicky. Interestingly this has been proven in a small-scale experiment run by Indian Railways in the late 1990s, early 2000s.

“Many years ago, the Railway hospital in Bhopal allowed rescued kids in the age group of 14-18 years to operate the canteen and STD-PCO booths, assisted by others. They operated it successfully, and it was a substantial source of income for the orphanage that had rescued the kids,” recalls Subodh Jain, former Member-Engineering, Railway Board.

The most comprehensive study on railway children - Rights of Children in Contact with Railways (RCCR) - backs supporting “the spirit of entrepreneurship and survival against the odds displayed by the children”. Critical needs for skill development, banking assistance, loans and credit lines, vocational education, and market support, as emerging from this study, can be incorporated into child-care and protection institutions that already exist or can be set up, the study concludes.

Jain couldn’t agree more. “Many of them aim to be successful entrepreneurs, whose skills we fail to recognise”. Failing them, is failing our future.

This article was supported by the Work: No Child's Business (WNCB) fellowship.