mother and children sleeping rough on mumbai central

padmasuri and i visited a karuna funded project in mumbai, padmasuri writing and me taking photos for the ‘06 karuna report (www.karuna.org). below is an extract from padmasuri’s text:

saathi runaway girls project, mumbai .

there are many reasons why an adolescent girl comes to mumbai, arriving alone at the central station from as far away as calcutta or even nepal. she might have eloped with a boyfriend who then leaves her; or be hiding an out-of-wedlock pregnancy.  there may be difficult circumstances in the home: a husband or mother-in law who physically or emotionally abuses her; some family member sexually harassing her. some are running away from child marriages, or inappropriate marriages. she may have come from the ‘interior’ parts of india to the city in search of work. perhaps she arrives in mumbai with the fantasy of realising a bollywood dream.  such a girl is easy to identify: she will usually be anxious, often the last one off an overnight train, alone and unsure.  but whatever her reason, if she arrives at the station alone, without contacts and penniless, she is highly vulnerable to exploitation.  she has a perhaps just 20 to 30 minutes before the pimps move in on her.

saathi’s philosophy is that the family is still the best place for a child.  return to a safe home is considered the best outcome. however, there is a lot to understand about a girl before sending her home.

hasina (not her real name) is 20 years old. her arranged marriage happened just three months before both parents died in an accident.  within a year she gave birth to a daughter. her husband was sentenced to a mumbai jail on a robbery charge. unable to afford the house rent hasina moved into a single room and paid a woman to look after her daughter. as a hospital receptionist she earned only 900 rupees a month. 

“i paid the carer 300 but the remainder was not enough to cover rent and food. i have no mother-in-law, none of my relatives live in the same town or knew that my husband had been jailed.”

“i knew a woman in mumbai who lived alone with her child so thought i could stay with her. she was my only contact, my only hope.”

accordingly hasina took the overnight 10-hour train journey to mumbai alone with her 15 month old daughter. she made her way to the anticipated address. but the woman no longer lived there nor left any forwarding address. 

“i will go to the jail, i thought, find my husband, and he can give me contacts of where i can stay.  i hadn’t seen him for 6 months and didn’t know what crime he had committed.”

carrying her daughter she found her way to the city jail.

“but i wasn’t allowed to see him, i had no ration card, no i.d – so they didn’t believe i was his wife and sent me away.”

“i walked over to the nearby court and was crying and crying.  at that moment i saw my husband escorted from the jail to the courtrooms.  i could hardly believe it! i just stared at him.  there was so much to say; so many questions to ask; like - when are you coming out, do you have contacts?  but i couldn’t speak these things, i was just crying.  he saw me and called out to come to the civil court on 13th. ‘don’t take tension’, he said,  ‘don’t worry’.

hasina walked crying back to nearby mumbai central station to use the bathroom and wash her daughter.

“it was getting dark. i saw from the station clock that the date was 6th.  i saw so many people in the station with their luggage, sleeping there.  i thought, i will stay on the platform here for 6 days until 13th, i have a few rupees to live on.”

looking around she saw most people in family groups, or solitary men.  but walking around with her child in her arms she spotted one woman on her own. 

“i sat down beside her and told my story.  i asked if i could spend the night beside her.”  she said, ‘you can stay 5 or 6 months here if you like!’”

the woman was a beggar who lives permanently on the station.

“in the night the beggar woman brought me chinese food from a station stall.  it was the first time i’d eaten chinese!

early in the night a coolie (porter) came up to them and asked the beggar-woman,

‘who is this girl, why is she with you?. 

the beggar-woman explained her story to the coolie. he gave instructions for her to keep hasina safely beside her for the night, and brought hasina and her daughter some food.

“i saw several men around the station looking at me. one man came to lie-down nearby but the coolie shooed him away.  despite the coolie repeatedly saying, ‘you’re o.k. take good sleep’, i was very scared and didn’t dare close my eyes. once in the night the police came over and said i shouldn’t be sleeping here at midnight. as the policeman was talking to me the beggar-woman went away, but the coolie took charge and explained my difficulties to the policeman.  as soon as policeman left, the beggar-woman returned to take care of me.”

hasina didn’t sleep all night.

“my head was going round and round, what shall i do?”

early in the morning a policewoman came to ask more questions. 

“now i was scared again, what had i done?  but she too was kind and gave my daughter biscuits. when the coolie returned he explained i could go to an organization where i would be safe.”

meanwhile, sangita, one of the night shelter staff at saathi, had been alerted of hasina’s plight.  coming in search of hasina in the morning  sangita asked if she’d like to come with her to a shelter.

i asked hasina what were her first impressions of the night shelter.

“some of the other girls were putting on make up and a couple of them wearing jeans and t shirt. “oh my god”, i thought, have i come to the wrong place?  all these girls together, is this a brothel?”  i was afraid and confused.

but then some of the girls started talking to me and i was reassured.”

she saw some girls going out to work, others doing glass mosaic work to earn a living. 

“i began to relax.”

hasinas big question what will be next?  by the time i arrived, 10 days after the 13th deadline, saathi had already contacted the jail through the police.

‘we need to find out the husband’s situation – there seems to be discrepancy and unclarity over the husband’s crime, he may be getting a longer sentence. 

and in the interim for hasina,

 “i’m doing some cleaning work here at saathi and feel safe. i like some of the other girls and the staff.  my wish is to go out to work to have some savings for when my husband gets out of jail, but there is my child. who will look after her?”

after two days the beggar woman came to saathi to enquire after her, and she’s been again since bringing food for the child.