Part 1

Every morning, the writer sees a young ragpicker boy who visits the
garbage dump near her house and searches for ‘gold’ in it. The
writer says that he searches for ‘gold’ ironically because although
the garbage dump is full of useless, thrown away things, still he
shuffles it so minutely as if he will get something as precious as
‘gold’ from it. The boy’s name is Saheb. His home in Dhaka was in
the middle of lush green fields. They had left it many years ago and
he does not remember it anymore. His mother had told him that
there were many storms that destroyed their homes and fields. So,
they left home and shifted to the cities in search of ‘gold’. The
writer again says, “looking for gold in the big city”. Gold here refers
to something precious which was not available in their hometown.
Things like shoes, money, bags, etc. for the children and food,
clothing, shelter as means of survival for their parents. The boy
searches for such precious things in the garbage dumps. One day
the writer questions Saheb and asks him the reason for shuffling
through the garbage. Saheb replies to the writer that he has
nothing else to do other than rag picking. The writer suggests that
he should go to school. She realizes that her advice is meaningless
for the poor boy. He replies that there are no schools in the area
where he lives. He also assures her that he will go to school when
one is built near his house. The writer asks him jokingly that if she
opened a school would he attend it. Saheb says that he would join
the writer’s school and after a few days, he runs up to her to ask
whether her school is ready. The writer replied that it takes a lot of
time to build a school. She felt ashamed at making a false promise.
She had said this as a joke and had never intended to open a
school, so she felt ashamed of herself. Saheb was not hurt because
he was used to such false promises as they existed in large
numbers in his empty world. He was surrounded by such false
promises made by everyone around him. His world was empty as no
promise made to Saheb was ever fulfilled. The writer had known
Saheb for a few months when she asked him his name. He replied as
if he was making an announcement that his name was Saheb – E –
Alam. The writer thought that the boy did not know the meaning of
his name and if he came to know that his name meant “Lord of the
Universe” he would not be able to believe it. His name was opposite
to his life. He went around the streets with a group of friends. It
was like an army of boys who did not wear any footwear. They
appeared in the morning like the morning birds and disappeared at
noon. The writer could recognize all of them as she had been seeing
them for the past few months. Another boy who was wearing a
different shoe in each foot said that even if his mother would have
given him the footwear, he would have thrown it away. He meant
that the boy was not wearing footwear because he did not want to
wear one. The writer asked the second boy the reason for wearing a
different shoe in each foot. He did not reply and shuffled his feet as
he tried to hide the shoes. A third boy spoke that he was eager to
get a pair of shoes as he had never owned one all his life. The writer
takes the example of shoes to highlight the condition of these boys.
They search the garbage dumps looking for such precious things.
She further tells us that as she travelled across the country, she
had seen many children walking barefoot in the cities as well as the
villages. They reasoned that they were barefoot not due to lack of
money to buy footwear, but being barefoot was a tradition for them.
The writer wondered and concluded that the reason of it being a
tradition was a mere excuse to hide the fact that they were so poor
that they could not afford [Link] writer narrates a story told
to her by a man from Udipi. (Udipi is a town in Karnataka). When he
was a young boy, he would walk to his school. On the way, he would
cross a temple where his father worked as a priest. He would stop
at the temple and pray to God to bless him with a pair of shoes.
After thirty years the writer visited the town and the temple. Now
the place was nearly empty. The new priest lived in the backyard of
the temple. Plastic chairs in red and white colour were kept there. A
young boy came running. He was wearing grey coloured school
uniform, socks and shoes. He had a school bag hung on his
shoulders. He threw it on the bed and ran away. The writer wants to
say that the financial position of the priest at the temple had
improved over the last thirty years. Now, he could afford shoes for
this children. She was reminded of another boy who got a pair of
shoes. He prayed to the goddess that he may never lose the shoes
that he had got. The goddess had granted his prayer as the boy
never lost his footwear. This shows us that the underprivileged
value anything that they get because they have been longing for it.
The writer describes the area where these rag picker boys live.
Seemapuri, located on the outskirt of Delhi was very different from
the capital of the country. In 1971 when these rag pickers had
migrated from Bangladesh, the area had been a wasteland.
Seemapuri was still a wasteland but now it was not empty as almost
ten thousand rag pickers lived there in structures made of mud,
with roofs made of thin sheets of tin or plastic material called
tarpaulin. There was no sewage, drainage or running water facility
in Seemapuri. They lived in unhygienic conditions. It was a piece of
wasteland where the garbage of the city was collected. These
people had started living there illegally. The ragpickers had been
living illegally in Seemapuri for the last thirty years. They have
occupied the area without government permission or ownership.
The politicians of the area have provided them ration cards and
voter identity cards. They got grocery for their family through these
ration cards and in return, they cast their votes in favour of the
politician who had helped them. The writer asked a group of women
who were wearing torn saris that why did they leave their homes in
Dhaka. They replied that if they were able to satisfy the hunger of
their families and sleep well at night, they were happier to live in
Seemapuri than their fields in Dhaka which were ruined and gave
them no food. These people travelled in search of food and
wherever they found it, they set up temporary homes and started
living there. Their children kept on growing there and gradually,
they also started helping their parents in seeking means of survival.
For those who lived in Seemapuri, the means of survival was rag
picking. As they had been doing it for many years, they became
trained at rag picking and did it well. For the rag pickers the
garbage was as precious as gold. These families searched the
garbage dumps and got things which they sold to fund their food.
They gathered torn or damaged sheets which were used to cover
the roof of their homes. These did not cover them well but still
provided them with some protection. For the children, the garbage
dumps were more than a means of survival. Saheb was happy to say
that sometimes he found a rupee and even a ten – rupee note in the
dump. As one often finds even a silver coin in the garbage dump, he
kept on searching hoping to find more. For the children, the
garbage dump was a means of fulfilling their dreams although
partially while for their parents, it was a means of aiding survival by
providing the basics – food, clothing and shelter. : One winter
morning the writer saw Saheb standing by the fence of a club. He
was watching a tennis game being played by two young men. Saheb
liked the game but could not play it. He told the writer that he went
inside the club when it would be closed. He was allowed to take
swings by the guard there. The writer saw that Saheb was also
wearing tennis shoes. They did not look appropriate with his dress
which was worn out and had faded. He told the writer in an attempt
to justify himself that someone gave him the shoes. She however
figured out that he had got them from a garbage dump. They must
have been thrown away by a boy from a rich family as he did not
want to wear them anymore. Probably they had a hole or two in
them due to which he did not want to wear them. On the contrary,
Saheb was not bothered by this fact and had no problem wearing
them as he could not afford anything better than that. He walked
barefoot and to wear a shoe even with a hole was like a dream for
him. Although due to the garbage dump, Saheb’s dream of wearing
shoes had been partially fulfilled but his desire to play tennis would
never be fulfilled. One morning the writer met Saheb who was on
his way to the milk booth. He was holding a steel container. He told
her that he had got a job at the nearby tea stall. He would earn
eight hundred rupees a month and get meals too. The writer asked
him if he liked the job as she could see that he had lost the carefree
look. As now Saheb was working for someone else and was carrying
his master’s container, he was burdened with responsibility. Earlier,
as a rag picker, Saheb would carry his own bag and was his own
master. Now, he was no longer his own master.