A midsummer nightmare

Despite the success of Slumdog Millionaire, almost every Indian city still has children running up to cars stopped at traffic lights or attaching themselves to shoppers at markets. They are always caked with grime covered with a layer of dust, but that's a minor thing in our dirty, dusty cities. Instead, what is most frightening is when their young bodies are missing a limb or two or are deformed in some other way. Most of these deformations have been "sculpted" by grown up humans.

Some months ago, I was at the upscale New Friends Colony market at around 9 pm. I noticed a very young boy, perhaps 6 years old, with a shoeshine box. Then I saw a beggar child, then another, and then another. There must have been 7 or 8 of them, ranging perhaps between 5 and 14 years of age. They all seemed to know each other and in between begging one would run to another and they'd play for a few minutes until they latched themselves on to another potential donor.

It all looked very innocent and one might have been forgiven for thinking, "Well, this is not as bad as it could have been." Perhaps beggar children moved up in life when they begged at posher neighborhoods.

Thinking this, I went into a restaurant for dinner. When I came out, I saw that most shoppers were now gone and the children were clustered around the oldest boy who had no legs and was resting what remained of his body on a skateboard. He had a grim air about him. They were discussing some matters in a business-like way. The children who were close to him weren't smiling.

I felt a chill as I was reminded of the "lead child" role in Slumdog Millionaire. On a hunch, I walked up to them, kneeled down, and asked him, "Tum in sab bachchon se bheekh mangwaa rahe ho?"

His eyes dropped, then he looked away. When I asked again, he seemed to wake up. "Nahin, hum sab alag alag jagahon se hain. Hum ek doosre ko nahin jaante." This was the first of several well-scripted and apparently well-rehearsed lies that all the children would tell during the course of the night.

I repeated my question, then grew angry. There was a little girl of about 7 with grayish eyes, hair brown from malnutrition and a thin but pretty face. I took her a few meters to a side and asked, "Tum kahaan se ho?" She gave me the name of a village in UP and then added for good measure, "Hum ek doosre ko nahin jaante!"

"Tumhaare maa-baap kahaan hain?"
"Main maa ke saath rehti hoon, baap to bachpan mein hi chal basey." The language was filmy.

"Tumhaari maa kaa naam kyaa hai?"

At this she wavered. Her playfulness deserted her and she started to look scared. I asked her again. "Sharda Bibi", she said finally.

A little boy, around 4 or 5, ran up to me. He was too young to know what to say and what not to say. One of his hands had been cut off.

"Yeh kaun hai?"
"Yeh mera bhai hai."

"Sharda Bibi ka beta hai?"
"Haan."

"Yeh tumse kitne saal chhotaa hai?"
"Pata nahin. Iske maa-baap ne ise train ki patri ke paas chhor diya tha, do saal se humaare saath hai."

So that was the story she had been told.

"Do saal se Sharda Bibi ke saath hai?"
"Haan"

"To yeh tumhara asli bhai nahin hai?"

She did not try to answer the question. She just twisted away in the manner that children do.

"Aur iske haath ko kya hua?"
She knew the answer to this one. "Train iske oopar se nikal gayi thi."

A wheel of a train is a big thing when compared to a two or three year old boy. It's very difficult to imagine that such a wheel could cut such a boy's hand off without mangling the rest of his tiny body. The hand had been cut off in some other way.

And as I asked the children one question after another, I realized that this group of children was being run by an organized gang. Though they had been trained to say they did not know each other, they had also been trained to say they came from the same village, and the contradiction between the two answers was obvious. Given the mutilation of the children before me, it seemed to be a very unfortunate village, real or imagined.

As it realized that there were calculating grown ups behind the children's stories, I grew angrier. Finally, I got up and charged to the nearby police station, hardly a hundred meters away from where these children were.

"Sir!" said the policeman at the gate, inflecting his voice to make clear he didn't really mean to show respect. "Aapko kyaa kaam hai?"

I was livid. "Main SHO se baat karoonga."
"SHO saab to nahin hain."

"Dekhte hain!"

And I walked inside as though I owned the place. Yet the thought crept into my mind, "Had this been any place but Delhi, I'd have been stupid to walk into a police station in anger."

I told the policeman at the desk, "Aap yahaan baithe hain aur sau meter dur bachche bheekh maang rahe hain. Aap yahaan kyaa kar rahe hain?"

The policeman was young and looked impudent in a subtle way. "Kisi bachche ne tang kiya ya chori ki?" he asked.

"Begging allowed nahin hai. Aapkaa kaam hai kaanoon ko implement karna."

He kept shuffling some papers.

"Aap sun rahe hain ki nahin?" I asked.
"Kisi ko bhejtaa hoon. Do chaante lageinge bachchon ko to sab theek ho jayega."

He evidently knew that was not what I wanted to hear. He was playing a smart game.

Just then I looked behind his desk and saw written there "DCP South East District: Shalini Singh". Shalini Singh and my sister had been in school together. Shalini is now one of the leading lights of the Delhi police.

I fell into the trap that all we Indians fall into, as we try to elicit some minimum responsiveness from the system. "Aap Shalini Singh ji ko phone lagaao. Main unko jaanta hoon."

That got their attention. The subtly impudent policeman was suddenly awkward and soon got up and left. Another older and gentler policeman engaged me instead.

"Sir, hum kya karein? Ab to bachchon ko hum thaane mein band bhi nahin kar sakte. Agar bachcha thaane mein aaye to bahut procedure hota hai - nahin to humaari vaat lag jaati hai."

"To aap kaise sambhaalte ho aise matters ko?"
"Sir, ek NGO ko bataana padtaa hai. Phir wo aate hain. Kabhi nahin bhi aate hain. Agar aaye to hum jaakar kuchh kar sakte hain."

"Yeh bachche kisi aur ke liye bheekh maang rahe hain. Koi inhe exploit kar raha hai. Saara desh Slumdog Millionaire dekh raha hai. Aur aap aisa matter investigate nahin karoge?"
"Sir, aap jo bataao wo karenge!"

"To chalo mere saath. Dekh ke aate hain ki ye aadmi kaun hain jo inse bheekh mangwaa rahe hain."
"Theek hai saab, chalo." And he adjusted his cap, picked up a laathi and marched with me out of the station, past its dark gate into the lights of the market.

Seeing us come, the children scattered. The oldest boy on the skateboard could not really move anywhere quickly, so he just played with a few stones - with one hand he'd pick them up and then drop them gently on the ground one by one. He didn't say anything, didn't answer any questions.

I found the little girl who had spoken to me. She was very scared now.

"Daro mat," said the policeman kindly. "Tumko kuchh nahin hoga." This kindness the girl could not take and she began to cry.

She quietened down eventually. "Tum kahaan rehte ho?" the policeman asked.
"Yahaan se ek-do kilometer dur."

"Kahan par?"
But she could not say it in words.

"Humey saath le chaloge?"
She nodded yes.

"Gaadi mein chalein?" I asked.
At this she brightened up.

So the policeman, the beggar girl and I walked to my car. I held her little hand as we walked. People would pass us and then do a double take when they realized what they had just seen. Some women instinctively pulled their own children closer to themselves.

The girl sat at the back of the car with the policeman. When I pulled the ten rupees out of my wallet to pay the parking attendant, I felt guilty of my wealth.

It was almost midnight. We drove a kilometer or two as she chatted freely. But after a while she sobered and said, "Yaheen rok do."

We pulled over and got out. We were at one end of a flyover. A small path ran by the side of the flyover and disappeared into the night. The girl led us down the path.

It was pitch dark - I don't remember seeing such darkness in Delhi before. On the left were some bushes. On the right were some walls. There was not a soul to be seen, if anything could have been seen in that darkness.

"Sir, yahaan par to koi kisi ko kaat kar phenk de to kisi ko subah tak pata nahin chalega" said the policeman betraying some nervousness.

I was nervous too. "Bolo, waapas chal kar aur log le aayein?" I said, ever believing that everything could be solved with more resources.

At this he firmed up his resolve. "Sir, is vardi par koi haath nahin uthaayegaa!"

But he seemed to grasp his stick more firmly.

Then the path opened into some light up ahead. We could make out scores of small dark bundles, blotting out the reflections of light from the railway tracks.

Almost at once we realized we had walked into perhaps a hundred sleeping human beings. Many were on the ground, while a few were on cots.

The girl pulled her hand away and ran. She was lost at once among the bodies, some of whom were stirring awake and sitting up. We strained our eyes to see despite the poor light. We felt rats at our feet, scurrying between the bodies.

It was a summer night and there were also many mosquitoes.

Two coarse young men materialized in front of us. "Kyaa baat hai?"

"Sharda Bibi kaun hai? Haan? Kaun hai Sharda Bibi?" demanded the policeman, asserting himself.

"Is naam ka yahaan koi nahin hai."

"Tum bachchon se bheekh mangwaate ho?"
"Saab, aap kyaa baat kar rahe hain! Hum bechaare to yahaan par kisi tarah se jeene ki koshish kar rahe hain! Humaare koi bachche nahin hain!"

"Yahaan koi bachche nahin hain?"
"Saab, ek do hain. Saab, hum to unko parhaanaa chaahte hain, aap uska arrangement kar do na!" one said thoroughly insincerely.

"Sharda Bibi kaun hai? Bataao nahin to main tumhe andar kar doongaa!"

He was bluffing but I was getting very nervous. I pretended to make a call on my cellphone. The BlackBerry's screen looked most eerie in this setting of huddled bodies. I spoke some authorative English into my phone.

The bluff seemed to work, partly. "Achchha achchha, wo Sharda Bibi! Wo to yahaan se thodi dur par hogi." And he pointed down the tracks into the night.

"Kitni dur?"
"Aadhaa-ek kilometer"

Needless to say, neither the policeman nor I was eager to go after this mysterious lady in this dangerous darkness.

Just then we heard some noises coming down the path we had just come. I tensed, but only till I saw who it was.

It was the group of children. They descended unsuspectingly from the path into the clearing. At the center was the legless older boy - he rode on a cart. The cart was pulled and pushed by the other children, and a couple of them had jumped in beside him. There was a Pied Piper air about the scene.

As soon as they saw us - the policeman and me - their chatter ceased. The adults stared at them and the children averted their gazes in guilty silence. Then one child scampered, and as if on cue, they all ran in different directions.

One of them was foolish enough to run close to us. The policeman grabbed hold of him.

"Kahaan jaa raha hai? Bataa, tere maa baap kaun hain?" he demanded.

The boy was of the scruffy kind. He must have been about ten. He hung his head sullenly.

"Bataa, inme se kaun hain tere maa baap?"
"Baap nahin hai, maa dikhaata hoon!" he said, suddenly angry and liberated at the same time.

He walked over to a cot where a body lay covered with a sheet. He pulled the sheet out with one flourish. A woman of indeterminate age lay there, groaning.

"Uth uth", he said sharply, but there was no response.

"Uth, uth, ye tujhe milna chaahte hain" the boy said and roughly pulled his mother into a sitting position by her shoulders. But when he let go, she again slumped back.

He moved to where her head was and hit her across the face!

She came to, a little, and said a few words. Then he hit her again.

"Bewdi saali. Koi phaayda nahin hai", he said, and walked away. All of ten years old.

I stood there stunned. That young boy already had a reality so complicated that I would never understand it.

"Pata nahin kyaa charhaa kar so rahi hai" said the policeman softly. He must have seen a lot of things in his job, but he sounded like a lost soul.

I felt lost too. I felt like a man might when he stumbles across a mass grave.

"Yahaan se nikalte hain" I said decisively, and the policeman was relieved.

I took out my phone and clicked a couple of photographs for the record. But there was no light to register in the phone's camera. All I got was a grainy gray of varying shades.

We walked back to the car, with me straining hard to sense any aggressive movement or noise behind us. I only relaxed when I slid into the car and locked the door.

The Rs. 14 lakh car looked like something from another planet. The beige leather and the blue lights on the dash were at once striking and empty. We drove back in silence.

"Sir, phir koi baat ho to zaroor boliyega. Mera cellphone number rakh lijiye. Humaaraa kaam hi hai logon ki help karna."

I was half-impressed. But he had one aspect of me foremost on his mind.

"Sir, aap Shalini Singh ji ko kaise jaante hain?"

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