REHAB CENTRE

Nokul was an unemployed young man. He completed his doctoral thesis from a university before two years. Now he is 35. So far he had applied for many jobs. But he could not get a decent one. So this time he applied for the post of the laboratory assistant (dom), who handles corpses at a reputed medical college in Kolkata. Almost eight thousand young men and women had applied for six posts of doms. Among them seven hundred eighty four got selected for the written exam. He was one of them. The basic qualification required to apply for the post was below the secondary school level. The salary offered for the post was fifteen thousand per month. Not bad! Nokul thought since he had worked in a start-up for three months for a salary of eight thousand. So he appeared in the written examination. But he did not qualify.

Later he read in a news paper that the people, who were well acquainted with the nature of the job or more specifically the people, who belonged to the families of doms traditionally, had been given preference. However, frustrated he had been spending days in the city of Kolkata. Sometimes he thought of taking loan and starting a business. But the next moment he recalled how the start-up, where he used to work, got broke! As an educated person, he could see the vicious circle that started with the low purchasing power of the people of the economy and ended with low income or loss incurred by the start-ups. His father was a retired bank employee and his mother was a housewife. He thought that he would keep applying for jobs for another year.

Then he would start his own venture when the market becomes a bit stable. Meanwhile one of his friends suggested him to invest in share market. Till now he did not start trading online but he thought he would start it next year in case he became unable to get a job. When his life was full of this kind of uncertainties, he used to see a dishevelled dirty beggar lying or sitting in the same position by the market every day. He used to feel nervous imagining him becoming like the beggar. He used to find astrology preachers while turning channels in the television. It sounded nice but he knew they were doing business too. In this way days passed. He wanted to do something but it seemed that all the windows were really closed. Only there was no scarcity of hopes from his peers.

As he had ample amount of time to spare and he was really disgusted by the daily soaps that were not at all connected to his life, he started watching free contents available on the internet. He saw a few good documentaries available free on the web. After a few days he got an idea. He felt curious about the dirty beggar as he indentified his future with the beggar. The question why the guy became a beggar started haunting him. So one day he decided to explore the beggar. He went to the beggar and gave him a coin of five rupees. Then he went to a nearby tea stall to observe the bearded beggar. He found the beggar itching his leg. That day he returned as he could not find information regarding the beggar in this way. Then he thought of opening a weblog asking for ideas for rehabilitation of street beggars.

He did not get much response immediately. He shared the page on various social networking sites. After a few days another guy responded to his post on a social networking site. He suggested starting an organisation that will dig into the life history of beggars and focus on taking them back into the mainstream slowly. This idea seemed quite feasible since only helping them by providing food, money and clothes would not solve the issue of street beggars permanently. So, the discussion on the web kept going on and they decided to start the programme by picking up a single beggar to test whether their plan worked or not. Therefore, they decided to meet one day near the street beggar begging by the market. They met at a tea stall and after having a cup of tea, they came near the beggar. They paid some coins again and sat by the beggar keeping a distance since he was really dirty and probably did not take bath for days. They started asking questions to the beggar. The beggar became scared in the beginning. But slowly after a while he started to reveal his story.

  Basically his name was Kanon. He was born and brought up in a village called Kumir Danga. He studied in a school till fourth grade. His father was a cropper. When he was 10 his father died getting thunderstruck while cropping in the field. His mother became widow. They had a small hut at Kumir Danga. During every monsoon this hut used to get flooded. Again they used to prepare the hut. After the death of his father, his widowed mother came to the city of Kolkata to work as a house maid. He used to stay with his poor farmer uncle and aunty. But one fine morning his uncle got to know that her mother died of cholera in the city.

The nearest club helped to send the dead body to his uncle’s place in Kumir Danga, where he burnt her body in a crematorium. After hat due to acute poverty his uncle stopped feeding him. So he left Kumir Danga and came to the city to survive. As he did not know anybody in the city he started begging at Sealdah station. He soon became target of other beggars, who controlled the begging community around Sealdah station. So he started visiting other remote places by local trains to beg. Sometimes he worked at street side hotels as a servant. This way – working at street side stalls and begging - he spent almost thirty years. Now he became quite weak due to mal nutrition. For the last few months the footpath by the market of Nokul’s colony became the address of Kanon. Here he managed to get food from a kind food seller and other helps from the market community. He lived on the street begging continuously.

Nokul and his friend listened to his story carefully. Then they decided to do something. One way to help him is to find a place, where he could be rehabilitated. But he also needed psychological counselling to get back to the normal life. They were clueless about what to do. Then they returned to their respective homes and started looking for a solution. They decided to open an organisation to help the street beggars. They contacted the local clubs and other organisations and foundations working toward the betterment of the society. Thus there originated their ‘Rehab Centre’ that helped street beggars to return to the mainstream society.

The story might seem very nice. But their journey was not at all so smooth. In this world raising fund was not at all easy especially where Government was thinking to sell river Ganga to a giant business house. The nation would soon become a conglomerate of ‘giants’ and their beneficiaries. And this kind of charity houses would completely depend on the mercy of the ‘giants’. If they want they would help the poor. If they don’t they would not help. But the real solution was to get rid of poverty. ‘How is it possible? Why is there a concentration of wealth? Why live at the mercy of a few? Why be afraid of life? How long does it take to achieve equality? Why to boast of a nation that’s nothing but a conglomerate of few?’ Every now and then, while running ‘Rehab Centre’ Nokul kept on stumbling upon these questions. But he kept mum and continued his service toward society.