After being routed by their arch rival AIADMK in the 2011 assembly elections, the party with defeat on their hands had added another round of drubbing in the corporation polls and bypolls. The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam seems to be groping in the dark

Karunanidhi’s ability to lead the party to success in future elections pose a big question mark on the future of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, and his age is not helping it either. Rumours are rife that Karunanidhi has been trying to name his son MK Stalin as his successor; the octogenarian leader has not been able to succeed on an open platform, as he faces resentment from his elder son MK Alagiri. His third wife Rajathiammal, for her part, too, wanted her daughter Kanimozhi to have a big share in the pie. However, Kanimozhi’s alleged involvement in the spectrum scam has made her elevation in the party doubtful.

In a slip of time not even long enough to contain a measurement of time, his slim grip on the finger of his mother gave out and he was lost in the teeming roar of the Ganesh Chaturthi procession in Mumbai. Too young to know his full name or his father’s name, too young to give the policeman who eventually found him his address, Ajay was sent half a country away to an orphanage in Bihar.

While the movie Slumdog Millionaire sanitized the story of street kids in India, Ajay’s story is real and at times terribly upsetting to hear. He ran away from the orphanage and became one of the hundreds of kids who arrive at the three major railway stations in Delhi. He became the youngest pickpocket in the gang that picked him up, anaesthetizing his pain by sniffing glue and spending whatever money he earned in a day on the same day he earned it, for fear it could be stolen while he slept.

His life lurched from day to day; by the age of ten he was streetwise and life-weary. His jobs included sweeping the floors of railway carriages to glean a few rupees.

Today, Ajay is a bright, handsome, articulate young man who is heading for a scholarship at the George Washington University. He talks about his chances of succeeding there, with all the confidence of any young middle-class Indian male.

Ajay and Tabrez are our guides from the Salaam Balaak Trust, a charity begun by the filmmaker Mira Nair after her film Salaam Bombay, a story about street kids of Mumbai. The trust now runs city walks as part of a fundraising and educational innovation using street kids as guides.

The City Walk tour group meets outside New Delhi Railway station. Two young men in blue shirts identify the straggling tourists and gather them together in a group, introducing themselves and asking about each guest. The tour then begins with a lesson on how to cross a busy Delhi street.

As we wind past the narrow alleys of Paharganj, gradually the street stories unwind among the tangle of human life and eventually we arrive at the day care centre housed within the New Delhi Railway station. A group of kids gather underneath a fan with paper and colour pencils. Most of the children are drawing pictures of a house. One boy sleeps in a corner, on his lips the tell tale white of a glue sniffer but the majority of children are bright-eyed, and excited to greet a bunch of tourists and practice their English.

In another room, a clinic is run, providing free medicines and help to children who are either alone in the city or are the children of migrants, who are left to fend for themselves for the day while their parents work.

We move from the station into the back streets of Paharganj and into one of the buildings belonging to the trust that houses boys, where a class is in progress. The visitors are encouraged to spend time in the classroom. Their joy and energy is contagious. Later, we are shown the many activities of the trust, and given stories of the success of many of their graduates. The atmosphere is one of joy and hope and refusal to be stuck in misery.

We are shown into another room in the centre where our guides share some more details of how they came to belong to Salaam Baalak Trust. Tabriz can’t remember his age, when he was put to work for 21 hours a day in a factory by his stepfather. He remembers being beaten if he fell asleep at work or if he cried not to be sent to the factory. “I wanted an education,” he said. “I wanted to go to school and so when I came to realise that my life was going to be this way, a slave in a factory with no protection from my family, I decided to run away.”

Sharing their stories, the boys speak without any self pity or anger. They understand more than anyone that their stories are not unique but part of a jigsaw of life stories that tumble from the mouths of the children gathered at the Salaam Baalak Trust. But now, the pieces of the jigsaw are being assembled into a portrait of hope and courage and success.

Tabriz survived by picking rags on the streets of Delhi, but was spotted by a member of the Salaam Baalak Trust and encouraged into the centre. “I came because they said they would feed me,” he recounts that his first few days in the trust were of fear and suspicion. “I wondered if they would send me out to work and wasn’t sure that their promise of an education was a trick. I also ran away from here a few times, mostly because I was scared and didn’t know whom to trust. But slowly, slowly I began to sit in class and one day when I was eight years old, I wrote my own name.”

His voice becomes choked with emotion at this simple statement. There is silence in the room of listeners. The walls bear witness to the many innovative projects run through the trust. A film and photography workshop, a dance class, art work and posters of positive affirmations. Photos of Salaam Baalak Trust kids who have succeeded in life across many disciplines sit on the walls. There are photos of summer holidays in the mountains, a photography exhibition, and notices about a mobile school.

The mobile school is a bus that has been fitted out like a regular classroom and includes all the latest teaching and learning aids. The bus stops for two hours every day at four spots in the city, offering activities and non formal educational activities that focus on hygiene, social skills, first aid and games. At the end of every two-hour session, nutritional supplements are offered.

Ajay and Tabriz now study via correspondence and earn a small amount of income by acting as tour guides for the trust.

Ajay made a trip to Mumbai recently in an attempt to find his mother, but the slum the parents were living and working in had been razed and high-rise towers stood in the place where his life had begun.

A happy ending and a sad one, but a true life story all the same.

By Dianne Sharma-Winter