How a Slumboy makes most of Lockdown

While the lockdown seems normal to everyone, nobody even thinks of us. We are a family of 7 people living besides the garbage dumpyard. Afterall nobody buys a place near a dumpyard and that is the only place left for us to live with peace in big cities. Otherwise all we could witness are huge high rise buildings and skyscrappers all over. 

You might be wondering how would you listen to the story of such a person in an affluent language like English. Well this is my first try at writing something on the 52nd day of Lockdown. Don't judge me. They say, writing gets better eventually. So if you come across my story, give me the benefit of doubt. I am not a writer but I am trying to learn and enhance my skills and I'd request you to keep reading further. 

I am Bablu - 17 years old, living in this diamond city, surviving on the leftover meals that you throw. I can say with certainity that some of you have turned nice during this period because we are getting food everyday, either from Government or from some nice people doing charity like you. We are surprised by this gesture. Though we are unfortunate, but this virus is our new God. You know why? We've spent more days without food in a month than in these 52 days. So, getting meals is a blessing in disguise. 

So, back to my story. I am a 17 year old with 6 other family members that includes a crippled father, mother, 2 younger sisters both 4 and 6 years younger than me respectively, grandmother and a younger brother who's a 2 year old kid. My mother with my siblings beg at a signal on Citylight Road while I carry my father on my shoulder and earn some sympathy money. Whatever we earn in a day, is spent on fulfilling our basic needs. We do not have a single penny as savings even though we manage to earn 500-800 Rs per day. But we are supposed to pay 400 Rs to Rehman bhai as hafta, otherwise he threatens to cripple us like he did with my father 6 years ago. My father who tried to go against him by working in a cotton mill.

Even though I was willing to get a job offered by a kind man on a signal once, this evil guy wont allow us to work. Unfortunately, we are chained employees who are destined to spend our remaining lives like this for people like him. We are the money making machines for these people and that is how the beggar association works. 

As soon as the lockdown was announced, our source of daily earning was locked up.  We went out of business and earn our bread or rather begging our livelihoods came to a standstill. We had certain savings but we lost that too. How?  Our destiny didn't want us to be happy either. You see the irony? The beggars are also mugged. Sonu and Pintu are the fundas of the neighbourhood. They beat my mother and took away all she had as our lifetime savings. Though we only had some 3240/- INR but that meant everything to us and  everything was gone on the 2nd day itself. They say,

'The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be'. 

But we never decided or chose to be beggars. We were never given a chance to chose where do we take birth. I strongly blame my destiny. Unlike you, I was not born in a private hospital or in a family that is multimillionaire. Not even a decent middly class family? Destiny chose me to beg for food like animals do. 

'kisine kuch de diya toh kha lenge.'

All we had was some savings to survive the 21 days of Lockdown. But all gone on 2nd day. My infant brother was hungry and all he got was mother's milk. The hunger corrupted our minds. I was envious of my infact brother. He atleast got breast milk. I somehow managed to steal a loaf of bread from a store nearby and a wallet from a man's pocket. The place was crowded to buy some liquid soap and Masks for all I know. Wallet had 190 Rs to my luck. We survived 3 days with that. A family of 7 surviving 9 meals on 190 Rs - an amount rich people spend on a coffee, I guess? Meanwhile, I started reaching out to gather for future necessities. But after a point of time, I realised that even with money, we couldn't buy anything. The shops were almost closed and the one's that were open, won't give us anything even if we offered money. Why? because we were ill treated considering our lack of hygiene and sanitary conditions. Nobody wanted to touch money coming from our hands. Isn't it such a tragedy? We live without any hygiene throughout our lives but still neither of us have died of any virus or dengue or malaria. We are known to die or hunger. A local neighbourhood of 1700 people and yet not a single person has been detected with corona virus in 52 days. How is that possible? We sleep with smell of garbage and trash on our heads and do not even have soap to wash hands let alone the liquids (sanitizers) rich people use. 

By the 6th day, nobody had anything to eat. My friends Roshu, Baaabu, Sintu and Rocky along with me headed towards the dumpyard to find something to eat. There were workers like us segregating the waste already. They saw us and gave us some slices of pizza that they found fresh kept inside a box. This was a leftover pizza thrown out by some rich brats probably. We did find some fruits too but couldn't eat them. We managed to fill our appetite but couldn't offer anything to our families as food was coming from the waste and smelled like rotten stale vegetables. 

Even the fresh food is spoilt after being mixed with other trash. We requested the garbage collecting workers to request people that they saved leftovers in a separate bag and handed over to us. Next day, we got some 40 chapatis from them and were happy to share with our family. This became our sole source of food for the next couple of days. We did manage to find some snacks in the packets that weren't spoilt. After a few days, we mastered the art of finding fresh food. We knew where to look, for what we need. While we were at it, 2 days later, a van came with plastic and electronics waste from some service center. The van enters into another room where the electronics and metal objects are kept and crunched in a machine and sold to some other agency. But these workers managed to sneek in and take out some important parts. There was a guy who used to remove capacitors and motors from these items and sell them to electronic repair shops and some mechanics. Some of the parts worked and others were sold to bhangarwalas. But since the shops were closed and he couldn't sell anything that he extracted, he allowed us to go there and take away anything we want. 

What did we find?

There were broken refrigerators, ovens, parts of washing machines, utensils and what not. You name it and it was there. Even if we steal some items and sell it to bangar wala we would get some 100-200 Rs. But there was no bangar wala option right now. After wasting our efforts, we realised nothing is worth feeding our families here and all of us left that place with a disheartening look on our face. 

At night, somehow I woke up. Started walking towards the dumpyard and went back there again. I dont know why I ended up there. It is still a mystery. Maybe to think of an idea or maybe destiny pulled me there. I don't know. I wasted 3 hours looking for nothing. I was desperate to find something but did not know what was I looking for. With the disheartening look and a pale face with swollen eyes, I started walking back towards my home. Suddenly, my eyes frozed. I saw a blinking light around the corner. A diamond emitting the ray of hopes. It flickered in that dump of electronics. I moved with curiousity. My eyes hoping it to be a magical wand that would solve all my problems. 

A light that gave me hope. Somehow telling me that I was destined to find it here. You may be wondering what is it? I had the same dilemma while taking those 20 steps towards it. 

Wait for it till I take the 20 steps. Let your heart imagine and take a guess untill I continue......