It’s more out of the need to write this, that I am doing it. I don’t think I would have otherwise chosen to write about this, specifically today when the bearing of the happenings is too extreme.

It was on the 16^th of January, that Sehar officially came into being as a group, with a Facebook page that has crossed the mark of 700 likes in around a week. Sehar, is a student initiative that’s already working for some causes, with the objective to aggregate individual efforts for creating substantial change around.

While we did have some causes to work for, the idea is also to initiate a concrete programme focusing on a particular area and issues.

It is to find an area and other issues, that Pousali ( a dear friend and a core member of Sehar) and I went to explore the alleys of the Tibetan refugee camp in North Delhi, commonly known as Majnu ka Tilla.

We got down right next to the over bridge adorned with the colorful little Tibetan flags, and Pousali asked me to click a picture of the over bridge, more specifically a board on the over bridge  of some Tibetan festival that was held at Dilli haat last month. And when we were done with that and about to climb the stairs came a voice, like that of some random person we often find on streets, sometimes talking to themselves or dwelling on past memories. (Not mad. Madness is a social construct according to me)

Like the usual times, there was this slight urge to walk off, but I guess the idea with which we are working and for which we headed to MKT and also destiny made both of us freeze out there as a man on wheelchair said “Bohot dekhe hain aise. Kai aate hain photo kheenchne. Samsung? Sony Ericson? Nokia hoga!” (“I have seen a lot like you. Many come to click pictures here. Samsung? Sony Ericson? Must be Nokia.”)

And after I could make sense of the question I replied “Motorola hain.” (“It’s Motorola.”)

And what followed was a long conversation, where we heard him dumbfounded as he reiterated after every sentence that he isn’t lying. His name running through his right hand in blue lines, ‘GUDU’.

After a tragic accident on 8^th June 2014, while working as a bus driver, both his legs were amputated and he was sick and ailing for months, vomiting blood and struggling to live. As a government compensation, he got an amount of  One lakh, out of which he sent his wife around Rs. 30,000 and also  got an e-rickshaw rented out in Delhi, which became useless after it was banned last year and was later stolen.

While he originally belongs to Saifai, Uttar Pradesh (infamously known for the Saifai Mahotsav and the drain of money in the same) he used to work as a bus driver mostly around Manali ( promising us a free trip to Manali with his networks). He constantly repeated the fact that he had a house in Chandigarh, repeating his address and how he was well known and respected.  Talking of his family, he told us how he had a love marriage with the daughter of a Kashmiri Pandit and also had a little daughter, both living away from him. He never went back to his family after the accident and is living an anonymous life on the streets of Delhi, glorifying the local MLA, referring to him repeatedly and how he has promised him treatment (the artificial limb particularly) how his car passed by the road day before yesterday and how he was offered sweets and sweeter promises. The District Magistrate had also offered him employment, when he visited him at the Rainbasera (shelter homes for the poor) since Gudu Bhaiya is literate. They clicked his picture and have not yet been back with further information or help.

My point here is not to baselessly criticize the administration or the political leaders who have made him promises. Maybe, they are actually trying to help him in some way. It’s just that, I can’t figure out how and when is that going to happen. And I have already felt so helpless, that waiting helplessly might just break me completely.

But when a differently-abled man needs support to even get on the wheel chair, with no family or care system around, how does he work? A lone man, with a family away, living a life of obscurity, in conditions that distress me when I imagine of myself at his place, how can he?

That’s not life, that’s a life not better than death, if at all death is a bad thing to happen.

In our society there are innumerable people living on the fringes, living anonymously and dying with a small advertisement in the newspaper, with the picture printed next day of a dead body asking for identification. But whoever would identify them, come over to fulfill the last rites? Mourn over their death, and pray for their souls to rest in peace?

My apologies if I sound too negative and pathetic, it’s just that these questions are troubling me to an extent that I feel blank and can’t even try to create a facade of hope.

But, Sehar now is going to work for Gudu Bhaiya, we will firstly get his identity cards made which are mandatory for the issue of the Disability Certificate. It’s a mandatory procedure to go through.

We are in touch with organizations working to provide for treatment and artificial limbs, to reinstate his dignity and a life of worth.

And to get him back with his family.

I am not certain how difficult or extensive this is going to be, what I am certain about is that none of the members of Sehar are going to give up.

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