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No sunshine, just shoeshine in their lives Saturday, November 17, 2001

Source - AsianAge
Ahmedabad: Diwali is a time when most children burst crackers and eat mithai. But not seven-year-old Shankar, who polishes shoes on main streets of Ahmedabad to earn his livelihood. He finds good opportunity in Diwali to make more money than he does on an average day.

Akin to Shankar, Diwali does not necessarily mean crackers, sweets and delight for 11-year-old Dinesh, who again wanders in the University area to find someone willing to get shoes’ polished.

Thirteen-year-old Raman belongs to the same group that wanders around the Gujarat University bus-stand. Raman cannot recall when he last enjoyed fireworks or ate sweets. Like Shanker, Dinesh and Raman, Diwali is nothing more than another day of toil for nearly 25 children in the university area, in the age group seven to 14, who out of poverty, are forced into the work of boot-polishing by their family members.

Diwali for them is just like any other normal day and if they do not earn at least Rs 50 after a 12-hour work, they are bound to incur the wrath of their fathers. When asked what if they fail to take the requisite amount home, a visibly horrified Raman said, “If I don’t take home at least Rs 50 every day, my father thrashes me with a cane.”

Most of them, who come from Rama Peer no Tekro in Old Wadaj, make their way back home on foot for they cannot afford the Rs 4 bus fare. “It eats into our collection,” says one of them.

If Diwali has nothing in store for these children, there is another group that desperately waits for the festival. Ironically, not for enjoyment but a hope that they might find some cracker or two in the huge garbage dumps in various areas of the city that they can sell to make money.

Subject to extreme poverty, these children who cannot afford crackers, collect all the explosive material from the crackers found in the dumps and obtain pleasure by firing them. Ten-year-old Babu, a rag-picker said, “I wait for Diwali every year but my parents don’t get me crackers. So I try to collect crackers from these dumps. Some of them do burst, most don’t. But it makes my Diwali.”

According to child-line co-ordinator Chhaya Joshi, the only solution to this problem is education. “Though most of the boys involved in boot-polishing go to school, the rag-pickers don’t get that opportunity.” The successful implementation of the “Midday Meal Scheme will definitely help ease the problem and decrease the number of rag-pickers in the city, she added.

News Source : The AsianAge [ The coolest newspaper for city ]

 

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