We Have Neither Joy of Living nor Sorrows of Death

He takes his seat near the Hanuman Mindir, side by the door, where he could see both the Lord and His disciples. Anmol Saha, 82 has reserved this place; he sits on the sack spread over a dusty floor, Keeps his stick beside and a steel bowl before him for coins to drop in. 

Anmol Saha has limbs that do not move and ears that do not hear. He is brought to this place every day by his son who collects the garbage from the bins and earn at least for half a stomach a day.

Bisnandu Saha, is only 11 and he has a blur memory of his mother, who passed away with a prolong illness, perhaps malaria. “We had no money to take her to hospital and even good food to give her the strength, and I don’t remember when my father gone paralyzed” cries Bisnandu.

Bisnandu’s day beings with the crack of dawn, taking his father to his every day’s place, he moves around the town looking around for recyclable wastages with the sack hanging from his shoulder  down on his back.

He buys a bun for their breakfast with a cup of tea in a small street restaurant and move around for search of wealth for the next meal, lunch, which me takes with his father near the temple. He can be often spotted lying under the tree sharing that old sack with his father when the sun is too hot, but much to worry is the rain, where their house made up of plastics and sacks bears lot many holes. On a rainy day Bisnandu and his father has a separate space in a cowshed of Mahajan Surya.

“Our clothes are torn and dirty, we get no enough money to buy, we wear those thrown ones, that we collect from the street. Nobody likes us and gives us a job, the malliks (shopkeepers) even scolds us if we stand near by their shop” he mutters.

Bisnandu loves going to school and having playmates, he often watches the school children neatly in their school uniform and enjoying with their play mates in the school ground.” I am not born with fate to be like them” he cries and move again with his sacks to collect the waste.

There are many such children, unloved, uncared, homeless, many have resorted to drugs and crimes, they are beaten and left with scars for life time.

Unlike those children, Bisnandu understands his responsibilities on his frail shoulder. “I have my father, he is everything for me, as long as he live I’ll have no problem, he is source of my inspiration” he says.

In the evening, after the sun set, they sit to count their days score and if it is high they keep for next day’s meal. Having done it he sits near his father and they sing the religious song. 

Bisnandu has picked up many of the Hindu religious values from his father. He firmly believes that human has nothing to call as his or her, it appears and disappears and are results of one’s karma, everything in this life is temporary, it’s a illusion and world itself is made for suffering.

With a smiling face he says “We are dirty, we are poor, we are unloved and homeless but what we have is, we have no one, nothing to care, nothing to protect, no hatred, no attachment, we can die peacefully, although homeless here, we have home in heaven”.  Pointing to the statue of Lord Hanuman he says “we need not have to go to doctor, he takes care of us, we have neither joy of living nor sorrows of death, we have HIM by our side.