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As we walked the Delhi train station with our 19-year-old tour guide, he told us of his life. A run-away at 12 because he was smoking and drinking and shamed his family; he lived on the streets as a ‘ragger’ (one who sorts through the trash for food) for one year. He laughed as he told us the story of his friend who was celebrating a holiday and gambling and playing with cards. His friend, I would assume to be his same age (12), lost all his money and threw the cards in the air! When he realized that the cards were perhaps all he had, he flung himself towards where he had tossed them. Because he was from the country he knew nothing about electricity. He did not calculate for the electric train wire between him and the cards. He was electrocuted and died on the spot. Our guide, with a smile on his face, told this story as if that part of his emotion response system was shut down. We all looked at each other in disbelief.

Every time we stopped for the guide to give us information a swarm of people huddled around us to see what we were talking about. The swarms often begged and were very often dirty. It was such a stark reality to think of the hotel room we would return to. The posh meal that awaited us, just an SUV-ride away.

The tour guide told us about the street kids’ lives:
• They would sleep on roof tops and tiny, dirt covered areas
• They would be beaten by the cops on a regular basis, but they would be crafty and turn running from the cops into a game. If caught, the beatings are often severe
• There were far more boys than girls since the girls were taken by the pimps at an early age
• There are many gang leaders among the street kids and each controls a different platform and area
• Kids die in the winter from the cold
• Kids go onto the trains and look for scraps of food
• Kids create relationships with local vendors to obtain medicine as well as money
• Many street kids are obsessed with going to the movies

The walk we took was sponsored by the Salaam Baalak Trust, an organization that promotes awareness of street childrens’ lives in Delhi. The organization takes street kids and educates them, provides them medical support and councils them. Many street children run away from their homes at early ages in order to escape rules, follow a Bollywood dream or to escape sexual abuse. The organization trains the street children to run tours for tourists, to be computer designers or city guides and many more professions. The company takes volunteers as counselors, computer trainers, doctors and English teachers. As I spoke with a number of volunteers they were overwhelmed with the positive results from pro-activity. The company was not sympathizing with the children but educating them in order to give them the tools to success.

Indians are all about culture. Mark Sappenfield, the India correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor spoke to us today. He talked of an India on the rise as a player in the world economy. He stressed however, the importance of education as well as the addressing of corruption. He loves India for the peoples’ spirit and humility. However, the sheer number of ‘humans’ in the country makes it tough for the government, who is corrupt and inefficient, to educate the people in order for them to advance in society. It then becomes a vicious cycle of the government’s inefficiency and since they are the ones who need to be sponsors of education, nothing moves forward for the lower classes. It is only the top 20% who are economically positioned to be effective in the country, however it is the lower ‘classes’ (not necessarily castes) who are the voters and important in the democratic rule of the nation. It seems the country has created yet another growing disparity.

Expounding on the word democracy, however, the remnants of sociologist and communist agendas are certainly not on the back burner for many Indians. Communism allows people to not think about their destinies. The lack of pro-activity thus allows Indians to remain stagnant. The catch 22 of this philosophy is that is one subscribes to the idea that the government can provide through total regulation, the government has to be un-corrupt enough to do so. This is not the case in India today.

The country itself is fascinating, beautiful and overwhelming at times. But as I walk around, I would rather be no other place in the world.

So, as you may be able to tell, it’s been an interesting day. In the evening we went to a place called ‘red fort’ where we saw an hour-long light and sound display. It turned out to simply be an audio tour of the Mughal Empire through British occupation in India. Though interesting, I think it lacked some in presentation and left most of our group fast asleep by the end. The temperature at least was pleasant and a couple of the comments gave those of us who were a wake, a good chuckle.

Tomorrow we are free until 5 so I plan to work on my grad school app and read ‘life of pi’.