The Unspoken Experience Behind Ashalayam: Experience Of Homelessness

Ashalayam, juvenile homes and shelter homes are realities that establish the importance of a home. But what necessitates a home? Homelessness is not only a presupposition but an existent reality. This techno-scientific world with its limitless work pace does increasingly create a world of anonymity. What you consider normal today is the world of hyper individualism, indifference and anonymity. This is a reality. Here I do not want to disregard the fact of the existence of good people. But the existential reality works in polarity. Opposites do exist. The experience of a home is juxtaposed with the experience of homelessness, similarly hope and hopelessness, meaningfulness and meaninglessness. One might hear of expressions like:

            “I am a foreigner in my own country,”

            “Homelessness of the home,”

            “Familiar strangers”

These suggest the need for a home, a much needed experience of being at home, need for recognition and a sense of belief that someone is there for you. A father and a mother is that someone who gives you ‘assurance;’ that you can learn to walk without stumbling. 

Just think of the old age homes throughout our country – what is the logistics behind the establishment of an old age home? Though there are good reasons, in the view of many who prefer old age homes consider their parents as troublesome, useless and a burden. So put them in a place where you need not care but see only your convenience (apart from providing for their material needs). Parents who brought up their children love to be loved and cared for by their own children. What would be their experience if they are neglected? They are compelled to feel in their senses the homelessness of the home.

Now what if the inexperienced children feel the same? One can easily notice a pattern in the children who are in Ashalayam, Snehalaya, Juvenile homes or Shelter homes:

Run away: this is the first response they give to a situation which is unasked for. In a home where the parent is abusive, the child is threatened. He/ she begin to plan an escape: run away. Where to? To an unfamiliar and unknown terrain. This is homelessness of the home - running after security in an insecure situation. Having done this, they land up in even more barren situation of hopelessness and ignorance. They are caught up in a situation of a fly in a spider’s web (hopeless) with the accompanying dangers. We have instances of young girls landing up in flesh trade, young lads who are sexually abused, etc. If they believe in their destiny, some of them do find themselves as an ant on a leaf in the running water (hope) with the firm faith that they are on the road to safety. Most of the boys who come to stay in Ashalayam are in the second category. Those in the first category, though they come to Ashalayam soon find themselves to be a frog in hot water. Hence, the natural response is to get out of the thrownness of the situation. They leave soon (run away).

Struggle for survival: The next naturally evoked response to the situation is a struggle for survival. The children who land up in working for the wealthy to fill their stomach will work any amount, ready to suffer any amount of injustices. One thing they definitely would not like to happen in those experiences is - they pray that they may not be deprived of their meal. One of the boys whom I met told me that he wants to go back to the railway station. The reason why he wanted to go to the railway station was that he could do some work, get some money and with that eat, watch movies and sleep. They do not think of anything else. In their struggle for survival, they learn to steal, begin to tell lies, begin to pretend, in begging they tell stories to evoke empathy and sympathy to meet their needs, sweep the trains, develop skills (massaging, singing, etc.). Those who are clever and intelligent develop a pattern of ‘stay and say’. This is an optimistic stance. Viktor Frankl would say that the external situations cannot condition you but you can condition the external situation. No one can take away your freedom to choose your attitude towards a given situation (though apparently you are pinned in by the situation). 

Stay and Say: The boys who stay in Ashalayam want to say that they are someone and prove that they are also one among the many great human beings who walk this planet earth. They teach the basic lesson that we are dependent on each other. The boys are helpless and always at the generosity of others. They tell of the stories of human brokenness. This is manifested in their life narrative – a child is born as a result of prostitution (you come into the world as the result of human lust, desire for pleasure and really unwanted), children do not want to be at home because parents go in different directions seeking for sexual satisfaction (the children feel that they are caught up in between wondering as how to understand their lot). They tell of the responsibility of parents (through their silence), tell of the reality of an unjust world through their experience of the world they encounter, tell of the divide between rich and poor, remind us of the potential becoming of a child (both positive and negative), tell us of basic human emotions of love, hate, fear, anger, rejection, etc.,

My Questions To Some Children And Their Answers

In general I asked what according to you is life? To this question they began narrating their experiences. It is  Viktor Frankl who said, “experiences are life’s gift to you.” In fact life is not tied up to a single thing, it is mingled and coloured with experiences.  The children view their life in the immediate context of their experiences (both positive and negative). The following are two examples of their life vision:

Bolkumar: he narrates his life this way – My father is a thief, mother a beggar. My brother died when I was small. My father taught me how to steal though my mother objected. He beats up my mother and I. Then he put a question – how should live my life with these people? So I ran away. The rest of the narration was centred on his experiences of being chased by people and he being afraid of police.

I asked him – what would you become in the future? “ I want to become an engineer, if not a bijliwala (they cut power every now and then, in my case I will never do that). I will build a small vehicle which cannot kill people and if at all there is an accident, people will be saved. (He directs our attention to the numerous road accidents that costs the loss of many lives) 

If you have one lakh rupees with you, what will you do? His immediate reply was – if I have money, I have trouble because there are many people who are ready to snatch it from you. ‘Looto math mai khudhi dunka’ said he in Hindi. (he definitely realised that stealing is not a good thing, he experienced loss of his own dear brother, being chased after, physically abused and a great sense of fear – yet in ashalayam he is hopeful that God  has something decent invested for him in the future.)

What do you think about the rich people? Actually there are no rich or poor. Material wealth and its absence makes one rich or poor. The thoughts in the mind are different. The rich do not think the way the poor think. Yet how would you distinguish the rich and the poor? One boy with his penetrating thought said few things:

If on the way you beg to a rich man, he would say that he does not have anything, they are unwilling to give but if you ask the poor, they give fully of what they have without any reservation. Money increases your wants. There are very less people who share with love. In sharing it really becomes big.

Is it sinful to steal? If you steal for stealing sake, it is definitely an intrinsic evil, but when you work for the rich only to fill your stomack and then you are denied of your meal, the situation definitely make you steal. Hence out of dire need (majboori se) one is in a situation to steal. It is not a sin.