Raju picks up an empty can of Coca-Cola from the footpath and then pulls down a black plastic bag perched upon his back. He proceeds to throw it inside that gargantuan black plastic bag and then flings that plastic bag over his shoulder again. He does this every day for roughly 14 hours and for that he is rewarded with a hefty wage of 60 rupees per day. Raju is the 6th child of Manju and Kamlesh, both of whom grew up picking garbage themselves much like Raju, and are now generously passing their legacy on to their progeny. People like Kamlesh, Raju and Manju have been lovingly dubbed “kachrewale” by the ever so sympathetic Indian populace. Kamlesh and Manju are parents to 6 children in total, namely; Lata, Saroj, Hemant, Kapil, Sarita and Raju.
Their first two children turned out to be girls, which was astonishing to them, considering they had prayed to God asking for a boy two times in a row and it was pretty much universally accepted that it was God who decided the gender of children amongst other crucial tasks like sending people to heaven or hell. After the second child they stopped praying and the third child ended up being a boy, named Hemant. The fact that they literally lived on the street and that the only future they could afford for their children was forcing them to become rag pickers as well didn’t deter them from being the power-couple that they were. So they had 3 more children.
The children grew up naked on the streets of Chandni Chowk, Delhi. The parents barely had money for rice and salt and so clothes didn’t seem that necessary. The children were often sexually abused by other rag pickers roaming around in the area, but the parents didn’t seem to care very much. You see, having 6 children put a huge toll on Manju’s body and so she remained sick for the rest of her days, lying down on a small mattress beneath a traffic light next to a public toilet. Kamlesh was the sole breadwinner (even the term breadwinner seems utterly cruel given they could barely even afford rice) of the family and so he was supposed to work 14 hours a day to make ends meet (ends being salt, rice and water) but worked no more than 4, spending the rest of his day drinking desi tharra and smoking beedis. Their children were growing up on a robust diet of suspiciously grey water, salt and steamed red rice.
Sarita and Kapil were found dead one day, they were 15 and 16 years of age respectively when they passed away, the postmortem found out that their death was primarily because of acute malnutrition coupled with a positive diagnosis of HIV in their bloodstream. Further investigation proved that the entire family was HIV positive and had been for a long time, it was just that lack of access to medical treatment and their poor diet had exacerbated the severity of an already lethal disease. The family of 8 was now down to 6. No tears were shed, no funeral procession. The family now didn’t even have enough left for rice and were sustaining themselves primarily on a dehumanizing mixture of salt and grey water. Manju passed away 6 weeks later. No tears were shed, no funeral procession. They were down to 5 now. With each day ticking away like a time bomb, everyone was unsure whether they would even get to see the light of day tomorrow or not.
Hemant, Lata and Saroj went to sleep that day but didn’t wake up. The doctors said that the cause of their death was malaria, HIV and cholera combined. Forming a sort of unholy trinity that even God himself could not escape. They were 14, 13 and 12 respectively. No tears were shed, no funeral procession. The family is down to two now. Surprisingly, death eluded Kamlesh. HIV, binge drinking/smoking and nutritional deficiency all combined couldn’t push Kamlesh into the pit of death.
Raju was the last child left, all his siblings were dead. He was a bright boy. He could divide and multiply like no one could. Even though he had never even seen the gate of a school, his mind seemed to work like a computer. Each day, after sunset, when the spoils of rag-picking were being counted, he would be asked to do his magic and let everyone know the total sum. He was 11, but his brain functioned like that of a 25 year old. He really wanted to study and make something of himself. Every day he would wake up at 8 and look at school children jumping and frolicking on their way to school. He was philosophical too. He tried to understand life through his conversation with adults, asking them questions like “where did we come from?” “GOD” was the only answer he ever got. He would often stand outside an electronics shop and stare at the television sets, he saw cricket and was infatuated by the rock bands he saw on the screen, he didn’t understand what they were saying since it was all in English, but he did catch on to certain sounds though. He would roam the streets playing air-guitar mouthing ‘oh-yeah-come-on-baby’.
One fine day, after boring everyone with his existentialist questions, he came back to his deadbeat father and posed the same question “Where did you come from”. “GOD” didn’t satisfy him so he asked again, he started jumping up and down asking the same question repeatedly. His father lost his cool, grabbed the boy by his lapel, and slapped him hard, whilst finally revealing the answer he had always been looking for, and the answer was “So that you could pick up garbage, you garbage man, you are here so that you can earn 60 rupees per day, more kids means more garbage pickers and that is why you are here, now go die somewhere like all your brothers and sisters”. Raju understood everything all of a sudden, as if he had an epiphany. He started walking in a reverse sort of fashion, with his legs moving back instead of going forward. His face lit up with the biggest grin you could imagine. He waved goodbye to his father. He crossed the traffic light, backing up out into running traffic. He kept waving and grinning. That grin was almost sarcastic. Seeing his only child backing into running traffic, Kamlesh ran towards him, but it was too late. An enormous red-colored lorry came hurtling towards Raju, Raju closed his eyed and spread out his arms. The lorry driver tried to brake but couldn’t, Raju was decapitated in front of his father.
He wanted to do it all, he wanted to play, to jump, to study. But he couldn’t. He would never get the opportunity to sit cross-legged, act like an intellectual and write a blog on Microsoft Word. He would never get the opportunity to listen to Pink Floyd or The Beatles. He would never get the opportunity to read Macbeth or The Merchant of Venice. He would never get the opportunity to drink coffee and ruminate over the conundrums of existence. For he was born to pick up garbage, he was a rag picker, his job was to earn 60 rupees per day, that is why he was here.
I weep for every Raju who was born.
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