a different world altogether......

People, especially the activist of Human Rights and the so called “civil libertarian” never becomes tired on saying, “the State has failed to give its citizen the guarantee of education”, “the State has failed to ensure jobs”, “the State has failed to make sure, the minimum requirement that is food”, “the State has failed to do ...everything!!!” (If anything apart from this didn’t come to mind.) Is it so?

Curiosity knows no limits, no confinements and no obstacles. It may be the hot summer of 2009 or the Super cyclone of 1999 in Orissa. To know the reality and understand better the dynamics of various aspects of the labourers, who are staying in the slums, I came out of my home. Vision not 2020 but to know about the people living in Ishaneswar Slum, near Niladri Vihar, Chandrasekhar Pur, Bhubaneswar, on 8th and 9th June 2009.

08.06.09, in that dulcet morning, I went to the top of a hill, where the slum is sited. A simple shirt with a more simple pant and a cap on my head. Yes, a copy and a new pen full ink, because ink might reach its goal (be over), writing their pain and sufferings. After I reached there, I feel idyllic. They are looking me like an alien. I don’t know why? My complexion is as dark as their but dots and dots and again... (ha! ha!..) They thought I am a government official. Of course they might think. I should have gone in T-shirt and jeans. Except those houses, roads and garbage, everything was just like metros. The boys are with torn T-shirts, like the city guys, who wear the same calling it, a ‘new style’. The ‘colour less’ jeans, u know, what we can call “faded jeans”.

Hey! Don’t take serious, I was just jesting.

First, I went to a shop, which is at the centre of the slum. From a distant, it looked, as if a circus is going on there. I went there and wait for the crowd to say bye. As people gradually went away- Oh k(no)w it was a shop. I said to that shopkeeper, I am student from KIIT and I want to know about this slum and the people living here.

“You identified me?” I asked after sometimes of that SEMI-gossiping, with a kurkure in my hand.

“Ya! Ya! That red house, near water tank and you are the son of Mr. Swain” he said but not in English.

Listen i am now busy. I am calling ‘Mr. S...’, he will accompany you.

Aaaaaa! call ‘S..’.

“He is not there”, that naughty boy replied at once without even verifying...

Listen this Babu has come to.... (Just like in Hindi movies, he is saying something, but the person sitting in front of the TV keeping his legs on the table is unable to listen...)

(That boy ran to someone and called him.)

Yes, YOU (that big wala na- Aap- to me) go with him.

Okay thank you....

I went with him and later learned that, the person accompanied me was the Head of that slum, when I asked others, the very next day, when i went alone from door to door.

Everyone asked the same question, who are you? And why you are asking this?

I was puzzled. What to say.

“Are you a govt. official?”, they repeatedly asked me.

No baba, No.

Then?

I am from a NGO.

Oh! NjuO, many of them said, as if they understood it.

Some 10th fail students asked which NGO?

Oh my God, I am dead. From Human Rights Law Network

What it do?

(Now i can’t say them to search in Google or go to hrln.org) Hmm It works for people in Kandhamal, Phulbani, Kalahandi etc. I even said the name of some new districts and places, which is not there in Orissa or even in India (I don’t know about other countries). They go on questioning me...

After sometimes one of them said ohhh Manava Adikara Commission!!

I can’t say, No, because it will lead to further question marks after “?” only. Yes that one, I said.

I experience that, there was an unprecedented and undated (which was not fixed) festival due to my presence. I can call back one lady called me “please, please, come to my home” and said many things within a second or so. People sleeping, half eaten came out to say something. It was really a different world all together.

Let’s talk about something substantive. The people over there are migrated from different districts of the state. Poverty and unemployment are the main reason for their migration. I came across many people, who are getting wages below than that prescribed by the Minimum Wages Act. They have no medical facilities and job security. They are unable to feed themselves, when they could not to go to work for any reasons.

There are people, who are staying there for more than 10 years, but there is no water, electricity and road available. It is to be noted that the governmental machinery is not working in that slum. As said by one, there is the record that the municipality is coming twice a day but they have not come even once. Here don’t ask me, how they know that..?

It is apparent from the table of my survey, which is stored in G: drive of my laptop that the women labourers get comparatively less wages than the men. But fortunately there was no such case of “child labour”. I came across 3 families, whose children are studying in KISS, the institution for tribal by KIIT Society and the Manas kanya of Achyuta Samanta.

The head of the slum, Mr. Pratap Ku. Pradhan, who is migrated from Phulbani, said that they are not getting BPL facilities; even there is no tube well in the area. People have to go miles to collect water, even for drinking.

Some people are afraid even telling me their name. I have remembered, when I asked the person, who is acknowledged as the first person to come here, his name. He said me Samiti Pradhan. I asked, is that you, he said “No”. But you write that only. I can’t tell you my name. My job (pipelines) might be taken away.

“A lot of people are coming over here. The family members are coming and staying in rented house and later building house.” Ashok Ku. Patra, a migrant from Kendrapada said. So, the number of people is increasing. On the contrary the government is not taking any steps to dismantle this.