Like the ancient watchmen waiting for dawn, the shelterless in Delhi's winter also wait with impatience for the night to end. One spent a few hours with them in a Rain Basera near Tehra Bairam Khan some years ago and the experience was a painful revelation. Ram Lakhan was a labourer who pulled carts loaded with grain in the anaj mandi. His wife and children lived in Baghpat. When the sun went down he had dal-roti at a wayside dhaba and then headed for the NGO-run shelter. He had a blanket, half of which he spread on the ground and covered himself with the other half, over which he put his tattered coat and lay down to sleep, using an arm as a pillow.
Near him lay an old man coughing and sneezing. His name was Kanahiya Lal and he had no family. He spent the day in seeking alms at different temples, from which he spent two rupees on his supper. The rest of the money, mostly loose change, he tied to his dhoti lest someone should steal it.
Kishori had once been a tailor but became deranged when he went home one night and found someone in bed with his wife. He walked out of the house and never returned to it. To make ends meet he worked at a dry cleaner's shop doing “rafoo” (darning) work. Sharvan sold bananas for a living and though he spent his nights in the Basera was mortally afraid of losing his earnings to thieves, of whom there were many around.
A strange tale
Banarsi Das was a drug addict and in a stupor most of the time. The man sitting nearby was an alcoholic. He worked as a mason and had a number of tales to tell. Once he was returning after white-washing a house. It had become late in the evening and his way lay through a dirt patch (where a mall has come up now) when out of the mud emerged a form which soon took the shape of a weird man. The apparition stood up and asked him why he had cut the barghat (banyan) sprig that had sprouted up on a house wall while cleaning it on a Saturday. He replied that the owner wanted it removed. “And you did not refuse?” said the deformed one accosting him. “How could I?” he replied. “Then bear the consequences”, said his tormentor and disappeared. After that, Banarsi Das became ill and did not work for a month. A kind grocer took pity on him and fed him throughout his illness and also took him to a maulvi who exorcised him. One doesn't know if his illness was due to a curse or the effect of strong drink but he insisted that his tale was true.
A young man named Khalid, who was an orphan, said the Rain Basera was a filthy place with mattresses infected with lice and bugs (khatmal). Most of them bore urine, semen, vomit stains and faeces, so he preferred to sit through the night, drinking from a half bottle of rum, which he bought from the money he earned as a signboard painter. His companion was also an orphan, just 12 years old, who too preferred to sit rather than sleep. He said some destitutes were in the habit of assaulting boys his age while they slept. Khalid nodded, saying that he knew this to be true as the men were sex-starved, with wives far away or with no women in their lives.
Once a mad woman took refuge in a Rain Basera and so many pounced on her that the poor wretch nearly died. Khilawan spoke about the misery that winter brought to folks like him. If you lie in the open you might not get up alive in the morning. So many vagrants who went to sleep after consuming liquor were found frozen and their bodies carted away to Irwin (JP) Hospital by a bearded man who came looking for the dead with a wheel barrow. No wonder these people looked to dawn as a saviour. “Raina Beeti Jaye”, the TV musical does not portray their hardships in its out-of-the world songs. So when you pass by a night shelter spare a thought for this unfortunate segment of society.
