The Art Modul

Do not remember any celebration in my family of parents and the four of us children. The first thing I remember of the time when I became big enough to understand was that, my family was an unusually one, a unique one. We had no home, no shelter, no food stored up and above all, no love from any quarter. With this initiation into life, I began to grow with my two brothers and one sister, I being the youngest.

Our house is a permanently fixed one, a patch of land on a pavement near the Hanuman Mandir in Connaught Place in Delhi. The cover or shelter is a mobile roof of polythene bags and the walls are of rags collected from rubbish bins.

Near the pavement there have been lying for a long time, some huge pipes and these pipes give us a warmer and a more stable home in the winter months. In summer also they protect us from the scorching heat of the sun.

So much is about my home. What we can count upon for food is just what people coming to the temple decide to throw at us, or, the remains of a few morsels thrown by the people who eat at the stalls in the temple.

Early in the morning both my parents go out to start collecting food for the family. Before a crowd starts coming to the temple my parents stand at a busy crossing from where they manage to earn a few coins. With these coins, they purchase a quarter liter of milk for us children, which, we all grudgingly share among ourselves and, one cup of tea which they both share between them.

With this much for our breakfast, our struggle for the day starts. Two of my elder brothers also now join my parents at the temple for their begging spree. My sister and I stay at home, i.e. the pipe or the pavement waiting for their arrival back home. In the afternoon, at about 1 p.m. they all come back home with whatever they have collected and we all sit and eat together.

Once we finish our scarce meal, they all go back once again to the temple to collect what they can for dinner, and I and my little sister stay...