I have always wondered what it would be like to hear "no" so many times a day when you beg at the traffic signals, or what it would be like to go hungry as you sniffed drugs to keep yourself away from breaking down. This wasn't meant to be an article but as we hung out with the street children, I figured that "happiness" is a construct we try to impose on others and judge their situation with respect to our situation. What I witnessed was a celebration of life, even though it was a painful existence, and the sheer joy of dancing. An edited version is in Open Magazine, which gave me a chance to explore this slice of life.
Chinki Sinha
Delhi, Bombay
You don't know what a boy like him is ought to do with himself. A piece of mirror, a little comb, and a memory full of notes from sitting in a dark theater, damp with years of neglect, the seats full of bedbugs. Imperial Cinema in Paharganj. A red decreipt building, which plays movies from the 1980s and 1990s, a tribute to the masala Bollywood films. This is where they come – the street children, and live their Bollywood moments, whistling, clapping, and dancing.
His eyes would brighten up as the hero beat up the bad guy. They'd well up with tears if
the love remained unrequited. He could spew out dialogues, complete with the circa from
films in conversations. In fact, he still speaks in Bollywood lingo – dialogues edited to suit
his context. In fact, they totally fit his situation. Sample this - “I was born to be a star.”
Shahrukh Khan at the IIFA awards in 2011.
He can hold his breath, modulate his voice and stammer like SRK.
Or this from Ready, a Salman Khan film.
“Zindagi Mein Teen Cheez Kabhi Underestimate Matt Karna I, ME & My Self,” Shekhar
repeats.
Even a few weeks ago, he was standing, oblivious of the others that perhaps were doing
the same, and shouting “maar sale ko, maar” as Suniel Shetty beat up the villain in film
Krishna.
You get involved. Don't you? Because in the other life as a street child, Bollywood is the
anchor, the teacher, and the escape. It is the “elsewhere realm.” Twelve years after he ran
away from his village in Bihar, Shekhar Sahni is still on the streets, figuring his way out.
At 24, Shekhar is a bit jaded. He has sunken eyes, hollow cheeks. Yet, his eyes burn bright.
“If nobody will give me a chance in Bollywood, I will give myself a chance,” he says. “I
used to say this when I was a tour guide with the Salaam Baalak Trust. I still believe in it.”
He is lean, and dark, and short. But hope can conquer everything. Even insecurities about
how one looks. For in the world of Bollywood, anything can happen. It is a magical world,
he says.
Back in those days, he carried a tube of Fair and Lovely, a face cream that promised
fairness, in his pockets, and would rub it through the day. At the time he was in the National
School of Drama's summer school. They said he would make a great actor. He was flying
high. Nothing would hold him down. Not even the vagaries of life.
It didn't start in NSD – the acting bug. His first film that he watched at a theater was Salman
Khan starrer Hum Aapke Hai Kaun. Javed and him had got on to the train to get to the
nearest town – Sultanganj – where the talkies were playing the film.
Later, when he came to Delhi as a runaway child, he spotted a tattoo artist at a market, and
got 'Prem', Salman Khan's adopted name for many characters he played in Bollywood, on
his arms. Later, when he turned into a Shahrukh Khan fan, he'd wear full-sleeved shirts to
hide the mark that spoke of his love for Salman Khan.
Before Salman, there was Ajay Devgan, whose Phool Aur Kaante that released in 1991he
watched on Doordarshan, and started styling his hair after Devgan, parting it on the extreme
left side, and on Saturdays when his school teacher Sharma Ji would ask him to sing a song
for the Antakshri class, he'd go full throttle with “Maine pyar tumhi se kiya hai ...”
Hand on where Bollywood said the heart resided – right side of the chest – and wind in his
hair, he'd sing the song for the girls in his class, too.
While the drugs have wrecked his body, his spirit has remained untouched. As he tries to
redeem himself, face the world that believed in him, and then gave up on him as he turned
into an addict, he has a plan. With the little money that has saved from his delivery boy
job at Flipkart, he wants to go to Goa, work there in the holiday season, and study tourism
management, and when he is not so poor, he will act again, and if Bollywood won't give
him a chance, he will make his own film, and that's how the release will come. Of the pent
up desires, of years of acting in front of the mirror, and repeating dialogues in that dark,
damp theater.
Shekhar's story is not of a miserable childhood, hardly worth its while in a set of narratives
full of tales of abuse.
Twelve years have passed since that night when they decided that nothing but absolute
freedom would be worth their while. While Javed Mohammed found love, and left for
United States with his American wife, Shekhar couldn't give up on Bollywood, or drugs for
that matter. He was the performer. But he fell through the cracks. Like many others, who
dedicated their runaway lives to the magic of Bollywood.
So when Dedh Footiya asks Shekhar to dance, he refuses. Not until he has conquered his
demons. Not until he has come out of the shadows.
“Footage kha raha hai.”
Dedh Footiya stood up, awkwardly eyeing the others that had gathered around him, rushed
inside the tin shed, and emerged with a cell phone, and white ear phones, a bandana
readjusted around his head. He stepped on to the pathway that ran across the park, and the
crowd stepped downstairs on the patches of grass.
Silence and bated breaths.
Aakash plugged in the ear phones, and pressed play button.
And to give the audience a cue, he started singing.
“Aai pyar ki rut bri suhani, tu darna na o’ meri rani …” from Kaho Na Pyar Hai, Hrithik
Roshan’s debut film in 2000.
When the others take on the cue, he stops, and dances, copying the moves of the star from
memory, even the expressions. He doesn’t look anyone in the eyes, but conjures the set
from what he had seen years ago, and perfected over the years dancing alone, in front of the
mirror.
There’s competition. In the twilight hours, the park near the Bangla Sahib Gurudwara
becomes a stage where the street children who live in the shelter homes run by a couple of
NGOs here, pay homage to Bollywood.
Praveen follows.
“Body ke andar automatic jhatka,” he explains. “Bollywood jhatka.”
Others join in.
In the other corner, 10-year-old Vishal wears patent leather shoes, several sizes bigger than
his, and does tap dancing.
Then, when is done proving himself as a dancer he sings.
“Jab Lagawelu Tu Lipstick, hila La Ara District, Jila Top Lage Lu,” a popular Bhojpuri
Song.
All of them live together in a park, in tin sheds that an NGO has set up as shelter homes
for those that have nowhere to go. In one corner, homeless women live. They, too, are
crouching under the tree and watching the boys perform, for the evenings would be dreary if
not for such things. A little girl Pooja is watching from a distance, and she walks over, and
after she has smiled through her crooked tooth, she begins dancing, too. Celebration of life,
a way to overcome hunger, fear, and loss of home.
Shekhar only watches. Later, he tells Dedh Footiya's story.
His mother passed away at an early age, and his father was an alcoholic. He dropped out of
school, and ended in this park.
“I want to be someone. Zindagi toh ek aag ka dariya hai, aur ise paar karna hai. Everyone
wants to be a hero. But those are dreams. Talent is a must,” Dedh Footiya, the performer,
says.
He is 18, and likes Hrithik Roshan, whose moves he has memorised from watching his films
many times over.
Even his mobile phone, which has no connection, he uses to store songs. He is a serious
man, and isn't used to talking much unlike Praveen, who narrates his own tale of survival
against odds. He ran away from home, was taken to a juvenile home in Haryana at eight
years, and later shifted to Delhi in 2005.
“Maa ki dua door tak kheech kar le jati hai,” he says. “I ran away, came looking for my
mother, but I had tasted freedom. Couldn't stay at home. Wanted to be an actor but didn't
know how. Started doing drugs. Ab daba ke nasha karta hoon, aur dance karta hoon.”
And there are others like a shy young boy, who has no hands, and kind eyes.
“Mera na ghar hai, na baar,” he says, as he walks away from the crowd to take a seat under
the tree.
Or a man who calls himself Brigadier Suraj Pratap Singh. He walks on crutches. At 29, he
looks much older than his age. Street life can do this to you, he says.
“I have a dream. I want to make a film on disabled people like Dosti,” he says.
Rajshri Productions' 1964 film Dosti tells the story of a blind boy and his crippled friend.
Singh, who is originally from Patna, wants to do a remake of the film. In colour, Maybe act
in it, too.
“In this world, we are the rejects,” he says, looking at the ground, where his two feet would
have been. “But in the world of films, there's space for everyone. We can all be heroes.”
“Dilli dilwalon ki,” a man shouts. “Yahan style ke liye aate hai. Then we turn to Bombay,
that brutal city where we will walk on the fire. We will be tested.”
“You know I have a plan,” Anurag says. “Let me tell you about it.”
Anurag is a first-rate pickpocket, has spent time in Tihar jail, and other prisons, but wants to
be a Bollywood star.
“I will go to Dadar railway station, then take a taxi from there. It will cost me Rs. 25 to
Mumba Devi, and after I have paid homage, I will return to the station. Either I will become
the hero, or a pickpocket,” he says. “Those are the only two things I know. Why station?
Because that's the most familiar.”
***
Those were the “elsewhere realm” days.
Back in those days, they'd sit through the nights, facing a white bed sheet, hung on poles,
streaming B grade Bollywood films, and watch with gaping mouths the car chases, the
awesome vamps, and the coy actresses. The irresistible hero, who'd beat anyone to pulp,
who inspired hope against the bad in the world, and that the good will prevail. Somehow,
anyhow. There was no other way out.
They'd cry, and laugh. Movies made them.
Delhi Powerhouse. In those days, they'd pay Rs. 10 for a bunch of films, and sprawled on
the mud and patches of grass, under patches of clear night skies, those were heady nights,
and Shekhar Sahni and other street kids cheered, leered, and often through broken teeth,
they'd repeat the dialogues.
From the pocket, they'd dig a broken piece of mirror, and while they went on about their
daily drudgeries, their faces greased with dirt, they'd sneak a peak at their reflection, adjust
their hair, and later, would stand at the ticket counter of Imperial Cinema in Paharganj
for yet another movie marathon. The wooden seats from another world, and ridden with
bugs, and the fans whirring overhead, and an old popcorn counter. Posters from movies of
yesteryears.
In the evenings, they would sit on the corrugated iron roofs, their home, and enact the
scenes, muttering dialogues, smoking cigarettes, and sniffing whitener, forcing themselves
into yet another “elsewhere.” Then, sleep takes over before the morning train arrives and
they clamber down the poles yet again.
Shakeel, Salman, Krishna, Vijay, Arjun, and Aakash. Runaways. Street children now.
Ragpickers, gang members, and Bollywood afficiandoes.
Platform No. 7. New Delhi railway station.
They crawled down the iron columns like monkeys. A few stationed themselves up on the
beams, smiling and waving.
“Duniya mein aaye ho to dosto mauj karo,” Salman says, as he walks towards the coach. A
standing train, and a bunch of them inside. Taking a break before the next train arrives so
they can claim their coaches, and comb them for anything that they can sell – plastic bottles,
aluminium foil, and if they are lucky, something they can take home to the roofs, where
they climb to every night, and sleep in peace. Of course the police know, but that's hardly an
issue. Money changes hands, and money can buy a night's sleep.
Salman, they say, never wears a shirt. Not after he saw Salman Khan showing off his toned
body in the movies he had watched at the Imperial Cinemas. He took on the name, and
walks around with a shirt in his hand, his lean chest, and flat stomach exposed.
There was a time when Tere Naam released that many of these got their hair styled like
Salman Khan. Long, with a middle parting. Intense. They had watched the film many times
over, watched the actor closely for mimicking him later. The police could identify them
easily. They were rounded up, brought to the Salaam Baalak centre at the station to be
reformed, and rehabilitated. But they had chosen freedom over everything else. Education,
and mannerisms, and the knowledge of the world would come from the cinemas. They had
seen Jackie Chan, and swore by his martial arts, and Salman did a somersault or two to
prove the point.
But beyond the smiles, there are the stories of abuse, and deprivation. There is also the spirit
of the child to break free, and take life head on, choosing to brave the circumstances rather
than stay at home, and suffer abuses in most cases, or just letting the dreams take over,
freedom overpowering everything else.
Many ran away from home to be Bollywood stars, for they believed the roles that Amitabh
Bachchan essayed on the screen in movies where he was the quintessential man of the
streets, brought up in the company of all dogs, and all sorts of men, living under the
footpath lights, and then making it out of that world, avenging everything, and chasing
absolute freedom. But freedom from desires? That's another story.
Runaway children. They stuck together, found others, picked trash, watched films, and
found freedom.
Blame it on the television. When he was young, Shekhar's uncle would take him to the
neighbor's house to watch Mahabharat. He'd stick around for the evening feature film, and
then when the village slept, and dogs barked on its streets, he'd sneak into the neighbor's
house, and watch the 9 pm films on Sunday. They didn't own a television set. When he was
11 years old, he'd hop on to the train and go to the nearest town – Sultanganj – and watch
matinee shows with Javed and other boys. By then, Shekhar had strayed. He bunked school,
gambled, and smoked bidis in the fields with other boys. A doting mother, a pious lady, and
a hardworking father, and siblings, and a comfortable childhood weren't enough to hold him
back. He ran away one day, and for six months battled the tough life on New Delhi railway
station before he was rescued by the staff of Salaam Baalak Trust, an NGO that works with
street children.
He fell in love with a girl from Scotland who had come for one of the walks. He didn't know
why he was so crazy about her. They'd meet in the parks, they'd talk about life, and he'd
love watching her laughter. He even wrote poems, inspired by Bollywood.
"jo chaha use is dil ne mere ... kya woh bhi mujhe chahegi. hai is intezar mujhe us din ka, na
jane woh din kab aayega
jo dekha khwab kabhi tha maine, kya woh poori ho payegi
ya chahat ki barsaat se pehle woh mujhse juda ho jayegi ..."
But like the underdog, he kept the letters with him. The girl left.
“I said no to an internship because I wanted to be an actor and spent all my time doing
plays,” he said. “Of course I didn't have the looks. I wasn't fair or tall. But I knew I could
make people cry. Now, I think I can make them laugh.”
He has already written a script. The story of a street child, the life he knows best. A girl,
who runs away, lands in Delhi, and her journey.
“I am thinking whether I should play the character of a pimp, or the brothel owner,” he says.
The friend he ran away with went on to live what they call a “dream life” in America. An
american girl fell in love with Javed, and married him. Shekhar liked her, too, but sacrificed
his love to see his friend happy. Bollywood style, he says.
“Every friday he would see a movie. He would work hard for the money to buy the tickets.
At the Plaza theater, they wouldn't let him in, they'd abuse Shekhar, but he would get pirated
DVDs and watch, or go to Imperial Cinema and see the films. But his dreams shattered and
he got addicted to drugs. Salaam Baalak gave him many chances but he was a lost case,”
Javed says. “He would wear a red bandana like Shahrukh Khan in Ram Jaane, and because
he wanted to be an actor so bad, it ruined him. He said no to everything that came along his
way. He just wanted to act.”
***
A dream does not die on its own but is killed by the choices one makes in real lives.
Shekhar hit the wall, and then after the fall, began the task of redeeming himself. Addiction
is a difficult habit to kick. He quit, and went back to it. When you fail, you want a flight of
fantasy, he says.
“Have you been to the Khalsa restaurant?” Anurag asks.
“Where is it?”
The langar at the Bangla Sahib Gurudwara, he says. That's where they go to eat, and then
come back to the park. They work odd jobs, but because they have missed out on formal
education, and have been branded as street kids, they are unable to find jobs that can pay
them enough to rent an apartment, and move ahead.
Salaam Balak Trust, a non-profit set up from the proceeds of the 1988 highly-acclaimed
film Salaam Bombay, which chronicles the lives of street children, made by Mira Nair,
has been working with the street children for decades, rescuing them, and rehabilitating
them. Since then, many other NGOs have come up, and they have set up shelter homes for
children to stay, and provide them with training and education. While earlier, the children
in these shelters were not required to stay indoors as the staff understood that these were
children who had chosen freedom over everything and if they tried to rein them in, they
would run away, the regulations now require them to report the children to the police and
if a child goes missing, the onus is on them. Hence, the children live in cramped shelters,
watch television, and learn their alphabets from volunteers from other countries who are
regulars at the SBT.
But these shelter homes are only until the child has not attained 18 years, after which he
is required to leave and find an alternative arrangement or join other shelters like the ones
run by Prayas in this park, a shed and a few water tanks and portable toilets. This is what
Anurag refers to as half-way rehabilitation, where they aren't at an age where they can make
it on their own. Sometimes, they work with the SBT as their staff, but there are only a few
such options. In some cases, they extend the time by a few months. They are given three-
months stipend after they have left the shelter homes, and in this period, they are expected
to find work. The NGO tries to help with the rehabilitation but not everyone can find a foot
in the door.
SBT runs a few 24-hour full care shelters for children, with one devoted to girl children in
Mumbai, Delhi and Bhubneshwar. There are several contact points near the railway stations
where children can get a meal and first aid, and can watch television, or just lie down.
But not all stay, or are convinced to join the shelter homes for they resist the confinement.
Like Aakash, or Salman. They'd rather not trade in their lifestyle for the promises of
education for in their limited time, they know enough to tell you that only the privileged can
find success because they are used to it, because success has a cost. The rest of them get by.
And if you have to get by, they'd rather do it on their terms.
A young filmmaker, who spent months with Shekhar and two others trying to understand
their lives, made a film called Badal Gaye Hum as part of his college project. Aatish Dabral
says he could only describe the lives of street children in these words “Each of them is the
hero in his own story.”
“I was very intrigued by them,” he says. “If you come from a different world, you are either
intrigued or you develop nonchalance towards such parallel lives.”
He met Shekhar, Javed during his college days. The film is about street children and their
lives.
“That's when I got to see their involvement with films,” he says. “In one of the scenes,
there's a voiceover that says 'Hamari jinadgi mein problems toh bhut hai par in teen ghanto
mein, jab film chalti, hum kho jate hai.”
When he screened the movie for them, they clapped, and Shekhar danced. It is one thing to
see themselves as heroes in their head, it is another to see it on a screen.
“Shekhar was the one who kept the piece of broken mirror,” he says. “He was the one who
should have made it. I still want him to.”
***
The camera missed him, but he ran. In that frenzied state, he realized he would need more
than just speed. There was a lot of catching up to do.
Rafiq Sheikh started riding horses. At the Chowpati Beach in Bombay, and worked out
at a second grade gym to get his body in shape. He tried learning English, and practised
dancing. But at the auditions, and he went to many, he got rejected. He'd curse his stars,
and everything else. But kept at it. At more than 6 feet, he says he can beat Salman Khan in
terms of screen presence.
“Give me a chance and I will prove it,” he says.
He came to the Mumbai Central Station years ago. His father married a Bangladeshi
migrant Zarina after his mother passed away. When he died of a heartache and too much
alcohol, she kicked them out. At the time, they lived in Rajgadh. Like Amitabh Bachchan
in Khuddar, he brought his two siblings to the Bombay Central and started working as a
coolie, learning the ways of the street life, battling the odds, and sleeping in the yards, in the
same spot where Salman Khan waited for Kareena Kapoor in Bodyguard.
“That used to be my spot,” he says.
Rafiq is 31, and is married now. But what he has chased for years, and lived for, he isn't
ready to give up. He still goes for auditions, and still harbours his Bollywood dreams. One
chance, he says.
“My father also was a big Bollywood fan. He used to tell me after watching Khuddar that
one son I will make a police inspector, and the other, a thief,” he says. “I was the one he had
planned on making a cop.”
But those were conversations under the sky, in a small hut, an alcoholic father, a depressed
man, telling his son his plans for them. Without much reference to the potential of life,
Bollywood had become the station of their dreams.
At the coffee house at Bombay Central, he introduces his friend Ram Naresh.
“We are like Dharmendra and Amitabh in Ram Balram,” he says.
The two had met years ago as children trying to survive on the streets of Bombay. They'd
watch at least two films a day in the Pila Haus area.
“The tickets were cheap and there were these old world talkies where we'd go and watch
the films,” Ram says. “Sometimes, we went to the Goregaon film city, a regular hangout for
street kids. In those days, they'd let us on the sets and we'd jostle to get on the camera.”
Most of the money they made, they spent on tickets for the films. On hot, humid days,
they'd sleep in their seats under the fans, while the actors played their parts on the screen.
“Whatever we have learned, we have learned from the movies,” Ram says.
While Ram wanted to be a cameraman, and always stood behind those who manned the
camera, studying angles, and claims that by looking at a shot, he can tell where the camera
was poised, Rafiq wanted to be on the camera.
“They used to say I looked like Akshay Kumar,” he says. “I hunted for those pointed shoes,
and used to wear them for our trips to the film city.”
They both remember their first film together at the Metro Cinema.
“We were wearing chaddis, and were dirty. But we had the fire in our bellies, and out of
the Rs. 10 that we earned picking up bottles at the station, we spent Rs. 8 on tickets,” Rafiq
says.
They figured that since they had skipped school altogether, the films could be their teacher.
So, they imitated the reel life.
When they were rescued by an NGO Childline India Foundation, where he still volunteers,
they had been invited to the Oberoi Hotel rooftop for an event.
“We wore chappals,” he says. “The invite said “formal dress” but we were confident. We
had learned to talk like big people from the movies and we were actors, we could imitate
anything. So, a lot of people were surprised that we were street children.”
Rafiq had gone for an audition with Karan Johar, the director who made romantic films and
shot the scenes in exotic locales. His stars were big ticket actors like Shahrukh Khan and
Salman Khan.
“He said I wasn't fit for the role,” Rafiq says. “It was a small role but I was so angry. I said
you give ten takes to Salman Khan but for us, you wouldn't give a second or a third chance.”
The duo have become smalltime contractors in the freight trains, and spend most days at the
Bombay Central station. On weekends, they go home to their wives, and return to a life that
they are the most familiar with on Sunday evenings.
“One day we will make our own film. Ram will man the camera, I will act,” he
says. “Slumdog Millionaire is our story. Only that they got there first. We were still figuring
out our lives.”
“What is there to learn. Thoda masala, thoda dance, thoda pyar,” Ram says. “Apne ko pata
hai picture mein kya dalta hai.”
So much Bollywood in their veins, they even loved like in the movies. There used to be this
girl, the station master's daughter who Rafiq was nuts about, and she would come every
evening to her father in the building opposite the station.
“I used to wait, and steal glances. I thought I was a poor man, and I should first become
worthy of her, and then propose her, but in this, I missed the boat,” he says.
Rafiq's ears are pierced and he wears studs.
“In Dharamveer, Dharmendra is wearing studs so I thought I should also do it,” he
says. “He is a great actor.”
Ram is a bit older than Rafiq. His father was a drug addict and he was forced to work at the
station to provide for his mother.
To counter the dark side of life, they'd celebrate with small things like playing video games
at a parlour in Tardeo. Raj was a master of the game and when he played, people would
gather to see him win one set after another.
When Karishma Kapoor and Rahul Roy's 1992 Sapne Saajan Ke was being shot at the film
city, both of them had been there, waiting for a chance to get the camera to pan on them.
“I tried to run ahead to get in the camera, but I wasn't there when I went to see the film,”
Rafiq says.
At the set of Andaz Apna Apna, where Salman Khan and Aamir Khan played comic roles,
Rafiq and Ram decided they'd not run anymore. Rather, they'd work their way up. But then,
so many years have passed. Exorcise your demons, they say.
And they laugh. It ain't that easy, they say.
“There's a certain charm about this life. You get up in the morning and you have 200 toilets
to choose from. We mean the train coaches, and tell me, how many toilets does a rich man
have?” Rafiq says. “There's the air-conditioned cinema hall if you want to sleep, or get
entertained.”
Both were fascinated with the white women who came to the city.
“I wanted to fall in love with one. They looked so fantastic,” Rafiq says.
Ram fell in love with a bar dancer. Those were the fun days. She'd come to Bombay Central
with food for him, used to wait for him to enter the bar before she'd dance.
“We'd go for long taxi rides, stay in hotels, smoke and drink,” Ram says. “She loved me.
I'd go and shower money where she danced. But such love is doomed. But no complaints.
If there was a heartache, I'd listen to sad songs. If there was a happy moment, love songs.
Bollywood for every occasion.”
Ram and Rafiq volunteer at the Childline NGO and help other runaway children find a
footing in life. They were not lost, so they'd see to it others aren't. So long as they are not
doing drugs, it is fine, they say.
There's freedom, and there's easy money. It's a life not everyone can deal with. There's pain,
and there's homesickness but once they have tasted freedom, they'd never want to turn back.
There's a bunch of them taking a break at the station. One young boy walks over to Rafiq.
“I have bought the Rajdhani train,” he says. “Rs. 15,000. Now, it is mine.”
“What he means is that he has bought the rights to collect the silver foil from the food
trays from the train from another gang. In this life, we have ethics, and we strike deals. We
honour those. There's a code for the streets.”
Till they find their way on the silver screen. The dreams are only vanquished if they let go.
They haven't. Not yet.
Chinki Sinha
Delhi, Bombay
You don't know what a boy like him is ought to do with himself. A piece of mirror, a little comb, and a memory full of notes from sitting in a dark theater, damp with years of neglect, the seats full of bedbugs. Imperial Cinema in Paharganj. A red decreipt building, which plays movies from the 1980s and 1990s, a tribute to the masala Bollywood films. This is where they come – the street children, and live their Bollywood moments, whistling, clapping, and dancing.
His eyes would brighten up as the hero beat up the bad guy. They'd well up with tears if
the love remained unrequited. He could spew out dialogues, complete with the circa from
films in conversations. In fact, he still speaks in Bollywood lingo – dialogues edited to suit
his context. In fact, they totally fit his situation. Sample this - “I was born to be a star.”
Shahrukh Khan at the IIFA awards in 2011.
He can hold his breath, modulate his voice and stammer like SRK.
Or this from Ready, a Salman Khan film.
“Zindagi Mein Teen Cheez Kabhi Underestimate Matt Karna I, ME & My Self,” Shekhar
repeats.
Even a few weeks ago, he was standing, oblivious of the others that perhaps were doing
the same, and shouting “maar sale ko, maar” as Suniel Shetty beat up the villain in film
Krishna.
You get involved. Don't you? Because in the other life as a street child, Bollywood is the
anchor, the teacher, and the escape. It is the “elsewhere realm.” Twelve years after he ran
away from his village in Bihar, Shekhar Sahni is still on the streets, figuring his way out.
At 24, Shekhar is a bit jaded. He has sunken eyes, hollow cheeks. Yet, his eyes burn bright.
“If nobody will give me a chance in Bollywood, I will give myself a chance,” he says. “I
used to say this when I was a tour guide with the Salaam Baalak Trust. I still believe in it.”
He is lean, and dark, and short. But hope can conquer everything. Even insecurities about
how one looks. For in the world of Bollywood, anything can happen. It is a magical world,
he says.
Back in those days, he carried a tube of Fair and Lovely, a face cream that promised
fairness, in his pockets, and would rub it through the day. At the time he was in the National
School of Drama's summer school. They said he would make a great actor. He was flying
high. Nothing would hold him down. Not even the vagaries of life.
It didn't start in NSD – the acting bug. His first film that he watched at a theater was Salman
Khan starrer Hum Aapke Hai Kaun. Javed and him had got on to the train to get to the
nearest town – Sultanganj – where the talkies were playing the film.
Later, when he came to Delhi as a runaway child, he spotted a tattoo artist at a market, and
got 'Prem', Salman Khan's adopted name for many characters he played in Bollywood, on
his arms. Later, when he turned into a Shahrukh Khan fan, he'd wear full-sleeved shirts to
hide the mark that spoke of his love for Salman Khan.
Before Salman, there was Ajay Devgan, whose Phool Aur Kaante that released in 1991he
watched on Doordarshan, and started styling his hair after Devgan, parting it on the extreme
left side, and on Saturdays when his school teacher Sharma Ji would ask him to sing a song
for the Antakshri class, he'd go full throttle with “Maine pyar tumhi se kiya hai ...”
Hand on where Bollywood said the heart resided – right side of the chest – and wind in his
hair, he'd sing the song for the girls in his class, too.
While the drugs have wrecked his body, his spirit has remained untouched. As he tries to
redeem himself, face the world that believed in him, and then gave up on him as he turned
into an addict, he has a plan. With the little money that has saved from his delivery boy
job at Flipkart, he wants to go to Goa, work there in the holiday season, and study tourism
management, and when he is not so poor, he will act again, and if Bollywood won't give
him a chance, he will make his own film, and that's how the release will come. Of the pent
up desires, of years of acting in front of the mirror, and repeating dialogues in that dark,
damp theater.
Shekhar's story is not of a miserable childhood, hardly worth its while in a set of narratives
full of tales of abuse.
Twelve years have passed since that night when they decided that nothing but absolute
freedom would be worth their while. While Javed Mohammed found love, and left for
United States with his American wife, Shekhar couldn't give up on Bollywood, or drugs for
that matter. He was the performer. But he fell through the cracks. Like many others, who
dedicated their runaway lives to the magic of Bollywood.
So when Dedh Footiya asks Shekhar to dance, he refuses. Not until he has conquered his
demons. Not until he has come out of the shadows.
“Footage kha raha hai.”
Dedh Footiya stood up, awkwardly eyeing the others that had gathered around him, rushed
inside the tin shed, and emerged with a cell phone, and white ear phones, a bandana
readjusted around his head. He stepped on to the pathway that ran across the park, and the
crowd stepped downstairs on the patches of grass.
Silence and bated breaths.
Aakash plugged in the ear phones, and pressed play button.
And to give the audience a cue, he started singing.
“Aai pyar ki rut bri suhani, tu darna na o’ meri rani …” from Kaho Na Pyar Hai, Hrithik
Roshan’s debut film in 2000.
When the others take on the cue, he stops, and dances, copying the moves of the star from
memory, even the expressions. He doesn’t look anyone in the eyes, but conjures the set
from what he had seen years ago, and perfected over the years dancing alone, in front of the
mirror.
There’s competition. In the twilight hours, the park near the Bangla Sahib Gurudwara
becomes a stage where the street children who live in the shelter homes run by a couple of
NGOs here, pay homage to Bollywood.
Praveen follows.
“Body ke andar automatic jhatka,” he explains. “Bollywood jhatka.”
Others join in.
In the other corner, 10-year-old Vishal wears patent leather shoes, several sizes bigger than
his, and does tap dancing.
Then, when is done proving himself as a dancer he sings.
“Jab Lagawelu Tu Lipstick, hila La Ara District, Jila Top Lage Lu,” a popular Bhojpuri
Song.
All of them live together in a park, in tin sheds that an NGO has set up as shelter homes
for those that have nowhere to go. In one corner, homeless women live. They, too, are
crouching under the tree and watching the boys perform, for the evenings would be dreary if
not for such things. A little girl Pooja is watching from a distance, and she walks over, and
after she has smiled through her crooked tooth, she begins dancing, too. Celebration of life,
a way to overcome hunger, fear, and loss of home.
Shekhar only watches. Later, he tells Dedh Footiya's story.
His mother passed away at an early age, and his father was an alcoholic. He dropped out of
school, and ended in this park.
“I want to be someone. Zindagi toh ek aag ka dariya hai, aur ise paar karna hai. Everyone
wants to be a hero. But those are dreams. Talent is a must,” Dedh Footiya, the performer,
says.
He is 18, and likes Hrithik Roshan, whose moves he has memorised from watching his films
many times over.
Even his mobile phone, which has no connection, he uses to store songs. He is a serious
man, and isn't used to talking much unlike Praveen, who narrates his own tale of survival
against odds. He ran away from home, was taken to a juvenile home in Haryana at eight
years, and later shifted to Delhi in 2005.
“Maa ki dua door tak kheech kar le jati hai,” he says. “I ran away, came looking for my
mother, but I had tasted freedom. Couldn't stay at home. Wanted to be an actor but didn't
know how. Started doing drugs. Ab daba ke nasha karta hoon, aur dance karta hoon.”
And there are others like a shy young boy, who has no hands, and kind eyes.
“Mera na ghar hai, na baar,” he says, as he walks away from the crowd to take a seat under
the tree.
Or a man who calls himself Brigadier Suraj Pratap Singh. He walks on crutches. At 29, he
looks much older than his age. Street life can do this to you, he says.
“I have a dream. I want to make a film on disabled people like Dosti,” he says.
Rajshri Productions' 1964 film Dosti tells the story of a blind boy and his crippled friend.
Singh, who is originally from Patna, wants to do a remake of the film. In colour, Maybe act
in it, too.
“In this world, we are the rejects,” he says, looking at the ground, where his two feet would
have been. “But in the world of films, there's space for everyone. We can all be heroes.”
“Dilli dilwalon ki,” a man shouts. “Yahan style ke liye aate hai. Then we turn to Bombay,
that brutal city where we will walk on the fire. We will be tested.”
“You know I have a plan,” Anurag says. “Let me tell you about it.”
Anurag is a first-rate pickpocket, has spent time in Tihar jail, and other prisons, but wants to
be a Bollywood star.
“I will go to Dadar railway station, then take a taxi from there. It will cost me Rs. 25 to
Mumba Devi, and after I have paid homage, I will return to the station. Either I will become
the hero, or a pickpocket,” he says. “Those are the only two things I know. Why station?
Because that's the most familiar.”
***
Those were the “elsewhere realm” days.
Back in those days, they'd sit through the nights, facing a white bed sheet, hung on poles,
streaming B grade Bollywood films, and watch with gaping mouths the car chases, the
awesome vamps, and the coy actresses. The irresistible hero, who'd beat anyone to pulp,
who inspired hope against the bad in the world, and that the good will prevail. Somehow,
anyhow. There was no other way out.
They'd cry, and laugh. Movies made them.
Delhi Powerhouse. In those days, they'd pay Rs. 10 for a bunch of films, and sprawled on
the mud and patches of grass, under patches of clear night skies, those were heady nights,
and Shekhar Sahni and other street kids cheered, leered, and often through broken teeth,
they'd repeat the dialogues.
From the pocket, they'd dig a broken piece of mirror, and while they went on about their
daily drudgeries, their faces greased with dirt, they'd sneak a peak at their reflection, adjust
their hair, and later, would stand at the ticket counter of Imperial Cinema in Paharganj
for yet another movie marathon. The wooden seats from another world, and ridden with
bugs, and the fans whirring overhead, and an old popcorn counter. Posters from movies of
yesteryears.
In the evenings, they would sit on the corrugated iron roofs, their home, and enact the
scenes, muttering dialogues, smoking cigarettes, and sniffing whitener, forcing themselves
into yet another “elsewhere.” Then, sleep takes over before the morning train arrives and
they clamber down the poles yet again.
Shakeel, Salman, Krishna, Vijay, Arjun, and Aakash. Runaways. Street children now.
Ragpickers, gang members, and Bollywood afficiandoes.
Platform No. 7. New Delhi railway station.
They crawled down the iron columns like monkeys. A few stationed themselves up on the
beams, smiling and waving.
“Duniya mein aaye ho to dosto mauj karo,” Salman says, as he walks towards the coach. A
standing train, and a bunch of them inside. Taking a break before the next train arrives so
they can claim their coaches, and comb them for anything that they can sell – plastic bottles,
aluminium foil, and if they are lucky, something they can take home to the roofs, where
they climb to every night, and sleep in peace. Of course the police know, but that's hardly an
issue. Money changes hands, and money can buy a night's sleep.
Salman, they say, never wears a shirt. Not after he saw Salman Khan showing off his toned
body in the movies he had watched at the Imperial Cinemas. He took on the name, and
walks around with a shirt in his hand, his lean chest, and flat stomach exposed.
There was a time when Tere Naam released that many of these got their hair styled like
Salman Khan. Long, with a middle parting. Intense. They had watched the film many times
over, watched the actor closely for mimicking him later. The police could identify them
easily. They were rounded up, brought to the Salaam Baalak centre at the station to be
reformed, and rehabilitated. But they had chosen freedom over everything else. Education,
and mannerisms, and the knowledge of the world would come from the cinemas. They had
seen Jackie Chan, and swore by his martial arts, and Salman did a somersault or two to
prove the point.
But beyond the smiles, there are the stories of abuse, and deprivation. There is also the spirit
of the child to break free, and take life head on, choosing to brave the circumstances rather
than stay at home, and suffer abuses in most cases, or just letting the dreams take over,
freedom overpowering everything else.
Many ran away from home to be Bollywood stars, for they believed the roles that Amitabh
Bachchan essayed on the screen in movies where he was the quintessential man of the
streets, brought up in the company of all dogs, and all sorts of men, living under the
footpath lights, and then making it out of that world, avenging everything, and chasing
absolute freedom. But freedom from desires? That's another story.
Runaway children. They stuck together, found others, picked trash, watched films, and
found freedom.
Blame it on the television. When he was young, Shekhar's uncle would take him to the
neighbor's house to watch Mahabharat. He'd stick around for the evening feature film, and
then when the village slept, and dogs barked on its streets, he'd sneak into the neighbor's
house, and watch the 9 pm films on Sunday. They didn't own a television set. When he was
11 years old, he'd hop on to the train and go to the nearest town – Sultanganj – and watch
matinee shows with Javed and other boys. By then, Shekhar had strayed. He bunked school,
gambled, and smoked bidis in the fields with other boys. A doting mother, a pious lady, and
a hardworking father, and siblings, and a comfortable childhood weren't enough to hold him
back. He ran away one day, and for six months battled the tough life on New Delhi railway
station before he was rescued by the staff of Salaam Baalak Trust, an NGO that works with
street children.
He fell in love with a girl from Scotland who had come for one of the walks. He didn't know
why he was so crazy about her. They'd meet in the parks, they'd talk about life, and he'd
love watching her laughter. He even wrote poems, inspired by Bollywood.
"jo chaha use is dil ne mere ... kya woh bhi mujhe chahegi. hai is intezar mujhe us din ka, na
jane woh din kab aayega
jo dekha khwab kabhi tha maine, kya woh poori ho payegi
ya chahat ki barsaat se pehle woh mujhse juda ho jayegi ..."
But like the underdog, he kept the letters with him. The girl left.
“I said no to an internship because I wanted to be an actor and spent all my time doing
plays,” he said. “Of course I didn't have the looks. I wasn't fair or tall. But I knew I could
make people cry. Now, I think I can make them laugh.”
He has already written a script. The story of a street child, the life he knows best. A girl,
who runs away, lands in Delhi, and her journey.
“I am thinking whether I should play the character of a pimp, or the brothel owner,” he says.
The friend he ran away with went on to live what they call a “dream life” in America. An
american girl fell in love with Javed, and married him. Shekhar liked her, too, but sacrificed
his love to see his friend happy. Bollywood style, he says.
“Every friday he would see a movie. He would work hard for the money to buy the tickets.
At the Plaza theater, they wouldn't let him in, they'd abuse Shekhar, but he would get pirated
DVDs and watch, or go to Imperial Cinema and see the films. But his dreams shattered and
he got addicted to drugs. Salaam Baalak gave him many chances but he was a lost case,”
Javed says. “He would wear a red bandana like Shahrukh Khan in Ram Jaane, and because
he wanted to be an actor so bad, it ruined him. He said no to everything that came along his
way. He just wanted to act.”
***
A dream does not die on its own but is killed by the choices one makes in real lives.
Shekhar hit the wall, and then after the fall, began the task of redeeming himself. Addiction
is a difficult habit to kick. He quit, and went back to it. When you fail, you want a flight of
fantasy, he says.
“Have you been to the Khalsa restaurant?” Anurag asks.
“Where is it?”
The langar at the Bangla Sahib Gurudwara, he says. That's where they go to eat, and then
come back to the park. They work odd jobs, but because they have missed out on formal
education, and have been branded as street kids, they are unable to find jobs that can pay
them enough to rent an apartment, and move ahead.
Salaam Balak Trust, a non-profit set up from the proceeds of the 1988 highly-acclaimed
film Salaam Bombay, which chronicles the lives of street children, made by Mira Nair,
has been working with the street children for decades, rescuing them, and rehabilitating
them. Since then, many other NGOs have come up, and they have set up shelter homes for
children to stay, and provide them with training and education. While earlier, the children
in these shelters were not required to stay indoors as the staff understood that these were
children who had chosen freedom over everything and if they tried to rein them in, they
would run away, the regulations now require them to report the children to the police and
if a child goes missing, the onus is on them. Hence, the children live in cramped shelters,
watch television, and learn their alphabets from volunteers from other countries who are
regulars at the SBT.
But these shelter homes are only until the child has not attained 18 years, after which he
is required to leave and find an alternative arrangement or join other shelters like the ones
run by Prayas in this park, a shed and a few water tanks and portable toilets. This is what
Anurag refers to as half-way rehabilitation, where they aren't at an age where they can make
it on their own. Sometimes, they work with the SBT as their staff, but there are only a few
such options. In some cases, they extend the time by a few months. They are given three-
months stipend after they have left the shelter homes, and in this period, they are expected
to find work. The NGO tries to help with the rehabilitation but not everyone can find a foot
in the door.
SBT runs a few 24-hour full care shelters for children, with one devoted to girl children in
Mumbai, Delhi and Bhubneshwar. There are several contact points near the railway stations
where children can get a meal and first aid, and can watch television, or just lie down.
But not all stay, or are convinced to join the shelter homes for they resist the confinement.
Like Aakash, or Salman. They'd rather not trade in their lifestyle for the promises of
education for in their limited time, they know enough to tell you that only the privileged can
find success because they are used to it, because success has a cost. The rest of them get by.
And if you have to get by, they'd rather do it on their terms.
A young filmmaker, who spent months with Shekhar and two others trying to understand
their lives, made a film called Badal Gaye Hum as part of his college project. Aatish Dabral
says he could only describe the lives of street children in these words “Each of them is the
hero in his own story.”
“I was very intrigued by them,” he says. “If you come from a different world, you are either
intrigued or you develop nonchalance towards such parallel lives.”
He met Shekhar, Javed during his college days. The film is about street children and their
lives.
“That's when I got to see their involvement with films,” he says. “In one of the scenes,
there's a voiceover that says 'Hamari jinadgi mein problems toh bhut hai par in teen ghanto
mein, jab film chalti, hum kho jate hai.”
When he screened the movie for them, they clapped, and Shekhar danced. It is one thing to
see themselves as heroes in their head, it is another to see it on a screen.
“Shekhar was the one who kept the piece of broken mirror,” he says. “He was the one who
should have made it. I still want him to.”
***
The camera missed him, but he ran. In that frenzied state, he realized he would need more
than just speed. There was a lot of catching up to do.
Rafiq Sheikh started riding horses. At the Chowpati Beach in Bombay, and worked out
at a second grade gym to get his body in shape. He tried learning English, and practised
dancing. But at the auditions, and he went to many, he got rejected. He'd curse his stars,
and everything else. But kept at it. At more than 6 feet, he says he can beat Salman Khan in
terms of screen presence.
“Give me a chance and I will prove it,” he says.
He came to the Mumbai Central Station years ago. His father married a Bangladeshi
migrant Zarina after his mother passed away. When he died of a heartache and too much
alcohol, she kicked them out. At the time, they lived in Rajgadh. Like Amitabh Bachchan
in Khuddar, he brought his two siblings to the Bombay Central and started working as a
coolie, learning the ways of the street life, battling the odds, and sleeping in the yards, in the
same spot where Salman Khan waited for Kareena Kapoor in Bodyguard.
“That used to be my spot,” he says.
Rafiq is 31, and is married now. But what he has chased for years, and lived for, he isn't
ready to give up. He still goes for auditions, and still harbours his Bollywood dreams. One
chance, he says.
“My father also was a big Bollywood fan. He used to tell me after watching Khuddar that
one son I will make a police inspector, and the other, a thief,” he says. “I was the one he had
planned on making a cop.”
But those were conversations under the sky, in a small hut, an alcoholic father, a depressed
man, telling his son his plans for them. Without much reference to the potential of life,
Bollywood had become the station of their dreams.
At the coffee house at Bombay Central, he introduces his friend Ram Naresh.
“We are like Dharmendra and Amitabh in Ram Balram,” he says.
The two had met years ago as children trying to survive on the streets of Bombay. They'd
watch at least two films a day in the Pila Haus area.
“The tickets were cheap and there were these old world talkies where we'd go and watch
the films,” Ram says. “Sometimes, we went to the Goregaon film city, a regular hangout for
street kids. In those days, they'd let us on the sets and we'd jostle to get on the camera.”
Most of the money they made, they spent on tickets for the films. On hot, humid days,
they'd sleep in their seats under the fans, while the actors played their parts on the screen.
“Whatever we have learned, we have learned from the movies,” Ram says.
While Ram wanted to be a cameraman, and always stood behind those who manned the
camera, studying angles, and claims that by looking at a shot, he can tell where the camera
was poised, Rafiq wanted to be on the camera.
“They used to say I looked like Akshay Kumar,” he says. “I hunted for those pointed shoes,
and used to wear them for our trips to the film city.”
They both remember their first film together at the Metro Cinema.
“We were wearing chaddis, and were dirty. But we had the fire in our bellies, and out of
the Rs. 10 that we earned picking up bottles at the station, we spent Rs. 8 on tickets,” Rafiq
says.
They figured that since they had skipped school altogether, the films could be their teacher.
So, they imitated the reel life.
When they were rescued by an NGO Childline India Foundation, where he still volunteers,
they had been invited to the Oberoi Hotel rooftop for an event.
“We wore chappals,” he says. “The invite said “formal dress” but we were confident. We
had learned to talk like big people from the movies and we were actors, we could imitate
anything. So, a lot of people were surprised that we were street children.”
Rafiq had gone for an audition with Karan Johar, the director who made romantic films and
shot the scenes in exotic locales. His stars were big ticket actors like Shahrukh Khan and
Salman Khan.
“He said I wasn't fit for the role,” Rafiq says. “It was a small role but I was so angry. I said
you give ten takes to Salman Khan but for us, you wouldn't give a second or a third chance.”
The duo have become smalltime contractors in the freight trains, and spend most days at the
Bombay Central station. On weekends, they go home to their wives, and return to a life that
they are the most familiar with on Sunday evenings.
“One day we will make our own film. Ram will man the camera, I will act,” he
says. “Slumdog Millionaire is our story. Only that they got there first. We were still figuring
out our lives.”
“What is there to learn. Thoda masala, thoda dance, thoda pyar,” Ram says. “Apne ko pata
hai picture mein kya dalta hai.”
So much Bollywood in their veins, they even loved like in the movies. There used to be this
girl, the station master's daughter who Rafiq was nuts about, and she would come every
evening to her father in the building opposite the station.
“I used to wait, and steal glances. I thought I was a poor man, and I should first become
worthy of her, and then propose her, but in this, I missed the boat,” he says.
Rafiq's ears are pierced and he wears studs.
“In Dharamveer, Dharmendra is wearing studs so I thought I should also do it,” he
says. “He is a great actor.”
Ram is a bit older than Rafiq. His father was a drug addict and he was forced to work at the
station to provide for his mother.
To counter the dark side of life, they'd celebrate with small things like playing video games
at a parlour in Tardeo. Raj was a master of the game and when he played, people would
gather to see him win one set after another.
When Karishma Kapoor and Rahul Roy's 1992 Sapne Saajan Ke was being shot at the film
city, both of them had been there, waiting for a chance to get the camera to pan on them.
“I tried to run ahead to get in the camera, but I wasn't there when I went to see the film,”
Rafiq says.
At the set of Andaz Apna Apna, where Salman Khan and Aamir Khan played comic roles,
Rafiq and Ram decided they'd not run anymore. Rather, they'd work their way up. But then,
so many years have passed. Exorcise your demons, they say.
And they laugh. It ain't that easy, they say.
“There's a certain charm about this life. You get up in the morning and you have 200 toilets
to choose from. We mean the train coaches, and tell me, how many toilets does a rich man
have?” Rafiq says. “There's the air-conditioned cinema hall if you want to sleep, or get
entertained.”
Both were fascinated with the white women who came to the city.
“I wanted to fall in love with one. They looked so fantastic,” Rafiq says.
Ram fell in love with a bar dancer. Those were the fun days. She'd come to Bombay Central
with food for him, used to wait for him to enter the bar before she'd dance.
“We'd go for long taxi rides, stay in hotels, smoke and drink,” Ram says. “She loved me.
I'd go and shower money where she danced. But such love is doomed. But no complaints.
If there was a heartache, I'd listen to sad songs. If there was a happy moment, love songs.
Bollywood for every occasion.”
Ram and Rafiq volunteer at the Childline NGO and help other runaway children find a
footing in life. They were not lost, so they'd see to it others aren't. So long as they are not
doing drugs, it is fine, they say.
There's freedom, and there's easy money. It's a life not everyone can deal with. There's pain,
and there's homesickness but once they have tasted freedom, they'd never want to turn back.
There's a bunch of them taking a break at the station. One young boy walks over to Rafiq.
“I have bought the Rajdhani train,” he says. “Rs. 15,000. Now, it is mine.”
“What he means is that he has bought the rights to collect the silver foil from the food
trays from the train from another gang. In this life, we have ethics, and we strike deals. We
honour those. There's a code for the streets.”
Till they find their way on the silver screen. The dreams are only vanquished if they let go.
They haven't. Not yet.
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