Take a walk on the wild side

Our guides have developed uniquely sanguine outlooks, but life on the hard side of the tracks leaves many scars. Javed says his childhood years in the station were not all bad, but is quick to add that the trust has given him a strong sense of self-determination and “a bright future”. “When I came to Delhi, I wanted freedom,” he says. “Many kids travelled a lot, stowing away on board trains heading in directions they had never heard of,” he adds, laughing quietly.

I want to ask him if he missed his childhood but the past is the past and he is now looking forward to completing his qualifications so he can enter a Masters in Social Work course. “I want to go back to my region, to help educate families, to work with the rural poor, to show people how to avoid this kind of a life,” he says, purposefully.

Did you miss your childhood in these years of scrounging for survival at the station? It’s a hard question for any of them to answer. But when younger children at the trust’s residential shelter eagerly open their lockers to show their private life spaces, I realise the jars of pens, combs, clothes, some frighteningly neat, others desperately empty, all belong to children who have never had a personal space of their own.

We arrived on Track 12. “We call it the ‘VIP section’ because this is where we found the best food,” Shekhar tells us. Station kids learn the train timetables off by heart. Nearby is the “Washing Line”, where trains arriving from UP and Bihar remain for several days, so its easy to slip aboard, rifle under seats for left-overs and sleep out of sight of the station cops. Sadhna points to another spot on the platform. “I bathed every day at the government’s expense,” he laughs. We pass eight station employees engrossed in a game of cards, untroubled by the myriad of pilfering, hustling and abuses taking place around them.

At the end of the platform, another small miracle is unfolding. Several dozen children of all ages sit quietly on a mat playing board games or listening to a story. They are children of homeless railway worker families who have been persuaded to give back a piece of their childrens’ precious childhoods every afternoon. Instead of being roped into selling garlands, magazines or miniature flags, these children are attending SBT’s outdoor school, learning basic literacy skills, eating lunch, playing games and napping.

Our tour guides pause with unconcealed pride as a grubby toddler waddles up to shake hands. “See how confident they become with schooling?” They marvel as the infant breaks into an earsplitting grin and reaches for everyone’s hands in turn. Although their own childhoods were torn from them by unforgiving circumstances, our guides are immensely proud of the trust and its role in these little ones’ future.

As their stories gain momentum, the drama of the dangers faced in their daily existence intensifies. We assemble on a railway overpass and peer through an iron mesh at a miserable pocket of space under the bridge. “Up to 20 kids a night sleep here, it’s a safe place for them, out of the cops’ arms length,” they explain, stretching out their own adult limbs to demonstrate the difficulties of reaching into the tiny crawl space.

Most Indians don’t know much about street life and homelessness, the guides tell me, which is another important reason for launching their project. “I want to extend an invitation to the prime minister of India to take this tour with us,” says Javed, looking me firmly in the eye. “How else can politicians understand what its like for kids like us?” “How else can they direct funds to the right kinds of programs and activities,” asks another child who has joined us with his own gruesome stories about being beaten repeatedly after being placed in a government refuge by police.

The SBT’s program is different from typical refuge NGOs. Founded by filmmaker Mira Nair, who started it all with Salaam Bombay, the curriculum emphasises theatre and other arts to help youngsters express themselves and gain confidence. Unsurprisingly, many are now serious movie buffs. The SBT guides are media savvy. CCN-IBN has filmed a segment on their redemptive stories while another filmmaker is making a documentary about their tour program.

Posters advertising the station journey are about to hit Delhi’s streets, hotels, universities and corporations. “We want to be listed in the Lonely Planet Guide,” says Shekhar, who loves engaging with people. “It’s great practice for my future life as an actor.” He is thrilled to be accepted into a second series of the National School of Drama’s Sunday Club. “My stage name is going to be ‘Shubhangam’” he tells me. “It means good beginning!”

It’s not hard to be inspired by the guides’ individual triumph over formidable odds. They are confident, thoughtful and radiate worldly sincerity. “No one judges you here, you have to learn to make your own choices, that’s what’s so precious about SBT,” says Shekhar.

In the weeks between my first tour and my return, the guides have blossomed into organisational wizards, each with e-mail addresses, contact phone numbers and reassuring remarks to put visitors at ease. “Your eyes disappear when you laugh,” Javed tells me, “You’re looking well,” says another.