Children left destitute by the untimely death of their parents and people abandoned by their families have ended up as roadside beggars. They beg all the day near the Shiv temple at Rajpur to survive. Even though they are all begging, all of them keep up their dignity.
Surdas is blind, but he is capable of playing a flute. He thinks people would appreciate it and would pay so as to enable him carry on. But unfortunately, most of them tend to ignore him and pass him by. “ I was born and brought up in Delhi. later, I landed up in Dehradun while begging all the way, “ he recounted.
He was young when his parents passed away. The owner of the Shiv temple had seen him playing the flute and kept him in his temple out of pity. “He pays me `500 every month. I have been here for nearly five years. I have no family to look up to. But I have invincible faith in the kindness of lord Shiva. I play flute apparently to earn money, but at the same time I do it to please the lord so that he can be induced to provide me with my living,” he said.
Dhanpat Mehto, a dweller of Kathmangda Basti, was found shivering in the freezing cold outside the temple. He begs the people for a blanket. “But they are indifferent. I have been here for around six years, begging at the temple to survive,” he said,
He had lost his wife several years ago, he said. “ I was living with my children in Bihar. But around five years ago, they abandoned me. I worked in several places to earn my living. But now I am left with only one option-to beg,” he said.
Bijli Mehto is a differently -abled youth, found begging in the same temple premises. “I lost my limb a few years ago in a train accident,” he said. “ My father was a drug addict. He refused to help me with his treatment. I spent whatever I had saved to meet my treatment expenses. But I left home forever,” he said. He said he was not ashamed of begging. “Everybody is a beggar as per my experiences in life. I have thus nothing to get ashamed of what I have been doing to keep on living” he added.
A widow Sunita Devi is still wearing bangles, thinking her husband would return to end her spell of predicament. Bijli told this correspondent that after her husband had died 10 years ago her in-laws had driven her out. They used to look down upon her and shun as inauspicious, he said.
“The people visiting the temple hardly show mercy on me. Some even make fun of me. They are so self-centred and even cruel. But I have still faith in the goodness of lord Shiva. He would bring my husband back to me one day and my suffering would end,” she said, eyes staring around her vacantly.