Altering the silence, pigeons coo from the roof struts as a policeman on duty outside the Metropolitan Police Range Office across the square takes slow steps to and fro before the giant stone statue of Kal Bhairav.
And outside the Kumari Chhen (the House of Kumari), a night market vendor rolls his cart towards Kasthamandap as darkness deepens amidst the splendors the Malla kings have left behind.
“Those are demonstrators. Get them!” A shout erupts out of nowhere, and two bricks whirl by. “Beat the hell out of those f______ bastards and kick them hard. We shouldn’t let them go today.”
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Subel Bhandari
Two children run for their lives towards New Road as the bricks miss them by inches. Four leaps and three more bricks fly by. One hits the ankle of the boy lagging behind. He falls and cries out in anguish.
Another brick flies by, missing the grounded boy’s head by a hair as two others, apparently the stoner hurlers, spring towards the distressed boy. “Hit him hard,” says one to the other.
On reaching him, one exclaims, “He’s hurt. There’s blood.” But the other kid doesn’t care. He pulls out a plastic from his pocket and inhales deeply from it, and then kicks the hurt boy’s butt. The boy cries out in pain and buries his face in his palms.
A micro-bus carrying dance restaurant workers speeds from New Road and darts towards Pyafal. The loud Bollywood tune and laughter from the microbus attract the children. The injured one exclaims, “Looks like the bitches have earned a lot today.” Everyone laughs. The vehicle soon disappears into the lane, and silence comes back.
As the night deepens, the wind temperature drops and the children abandon their “police-demonstrator” game. They huddle together, every so often kicking each other in the butt and laughing.
“We have to sleep outside tonight,” says one, observing the thick vapor in their breath.
“Look, the vapor I exhale is the longest,” says another in a reaffirming stance as the children crisscross their vapor and stroll to the temple opposite the Basantpur Durbar. All four climb the stairs of the temple.
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On reaching the top, one begins to sing as others collect scattered paperboards to sleep on. The hurt one then fishes out a little plastic out of his worn pants and begins to inhale from it. Two others stretch out and follow suit. One of them blurts out (to the singing boy), “Shut up, will you?”
Soon, the four snuggle up to each other and sleep, drowned in the hallucinations of the Dendrite glue they sniff. Two stray dogs appear, nose around and settle next to the children, and together they all call it a day.
Basantpur is immersed in silence, a disturbing one that stands testimony to these children who seek shelter in a once-royal courtyard having such principal deities like the Kumari, Ganesh, and Kumar who are worshipped in their manifestations of children.
Just five hours before the “police-demonstrator” game in the neighborhood of gods and goddesses, there were teenagers, lovers and hangers-on, home returnees, potheads, beggars, tourists and vendors, and people from all walks of life who came here to shop, and sipped tea, and enjoyed the delicacies of the night market as innocent eyes observed it all.
For the urchins, the dumped leftovers of the night market end up as their dinner, discarded cigarette butts their amusement, and their everyday encounter with the plastic collection regimen earning them a few Rupees which afford them cigarettes and the life-threatening glue that supposedly damps their hunger pangs and wards off cold.
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Subel Bhandari
Elsewhere, dreams and flesh circumambulate the vertical lifestyle which towers over the subalterns as wholesale promises continue to be manufactured in a society where crocodile empathies and political ethos choke the masses.
In the midst of all this Kathmandu cacophony, the children, or to be more politically correct, the street children, have nothing but each other to narrate their experiences of intimidating silence, hunger and hallucination as their relationship to the street binds them together.
Once in a while, they cross that line and can be seen getting a little too close to the passers by, only to be shooed off and sometimes even beaten until bruised. Disillusioned, the deep-seated eyes seek their own realms.
“People call us khate and regard us as pickpockets. We’re exploited by everyone. Sometimes, the people who hire us don’t pay and sometimes underpay for all the work we do. Life is hard on the street. No one loves us,” the children say.
Identifying himself as 12 years old, Anil Nepal (name changed), one of our stoner boys, who stinks of the glue he sniffs, says, “I ran away from home in Birat Chowk in the east because my father beat me regularly. And even in the welfare centre where I stayed, my friends and I got thrashed for no reason. So we quit.”
A few of Anil’s friends don’t even remember their names, and some like Anil assume their age, while others don’t understand why they exist in the first place as their memories of home and family have faded away long ago.
Children like Anil are a stark reminder of our society’s failures, as economic drawbacks, family disruption, migration and displacement continue to escalate even in post-conflict Nepal.
Result: The country is pushed further down the poverty line, and an entire generation is left footloose on the streets. They don’t have a past; they can’t relate to the present; and their future is uncertain.
Child welfare organizations and the government aren’t ignorant of this neglected lot, but there hasn’t been any significant change in the street children’s lives, situation and their ever-increasing numbers.
Children like Anil, on whose excuse the country has mushroomed garden variety organizations and accumulated funds, are yet to be recognized and given their due inalienable rights and the guarantee of basic necessities such as food, clothing and shelter.
Subel Bhandari
The children’s glue-glossed eyes are lost in the headcount as controversial and contradicting facts and figures disseminated by numerous organizations and local associations dissolve in one’s mind in much the same way the glue the children are addicted to does to their dashed hopes.
When dawn breaks, these grim sights and sounds are preceded by stories, apparently larger-than-life ones, as these boys and girls go rag-picking, begging and working as conductors or collecting leftovers at party palaces.
But when another night comes, the freedom, and dignity and to live life as one wishes are an issue – even for these children. Because for them, the biggest problem is the way society perceives them.
But there is hope, as we shall see.
Sunil Thapa (name changed), 15, has been living on and off the streets for seven years now. Like Anil, he oozes out the smell of dendrite, yet claims it’s just an occasional thing.
“I smoke three cigarettes a day but I’ve reduced the intake of dendrite. I do it only occasionally with friends when we go out partying.”
During the last Dashain festivals, Thapa visited his family in Hetauda. He had run away from it at eight as his fellow escapees had promised him a better life and job opportunities.
But on reaching Kathmandu, he was left alone with no support. His street life thus began, and he learned of life’s hardships early.
While on the streets, Sunil learned survival tricks, including sniffing glue, the aftereffects of which can still be seen in his slow apprehension of things.
But things are changing for better.
Today, Sunil is training to be a mechanic under the residential, social empowerment and self-reliance program operated by one of the child welfare organizations in the capital where he has been engaged for the past three years.
There, Thapa says, “I’m given food, shelter and education. I studied to grade four, but after that I didn’t feel like studying and instead chose to join the mechanics training.”
Thapa says he understands that if empowered, he can uplift his life and make his own decisions without having to rely on an organization or individual forever. He also understands that with this empowerment he will earn respect and will not be labeled a “khate.”
“I want to go back to my family and my village and earn a livelihood,” he says, forcing a smile as his deep eyes span the Basantpur Square spread out in front of him.
