Giving Children a Chance - Part 5

SHAHID

He quickly admits to having been dependent on drugs, but unlike many others seems positive about the future. He was dependent on inhalants and ganja, and says he tried smack only once. We ask him if he is lying, to which he replies, “I am not lying to you, because I know that if I do I will only be delaying my recovery”.

Then without much prompting from us he starts talking about his first encounter with inhalants.
He and his friends would go to a park to do the hits. “They said it was sweet, and so I took it. Actually it tasted bitter, but gradually I developed a liking for the sensation the drugs produced. This continued for months when one day my mother got suspicious upon seeing my bloodshot eyes.”
He says he has been at the SPYM centre for exactly two months and seven days. When we ask how he is so sure of it, he says it’s because he has been counting the days ever since he came here. He is keen to go back home, and if it were possible he would do so this very day, he says. “Din ginta hoon” (I count the days).

This, he assures us, is not because he wants to return to drug-taking but his deep desire to resume his studies. We ask whether he would consider staying on if he could have his lessons at the centre. “But I want to learn Urdu. Dua karna seekhna hai. Namaaz farz hota hai,” he says, recalling his father’s words.

Shahid’s brother also fell into drug dependency and is in hospital right now.
Shahid says what he will miss most if he leaves the centre is playing carom which he is very fond of. “We have a football at home but no carom board.” So if he can also be taught Urdu here the love of the game would be enough to make him want to stay on. Won’t he miss his mother, we ask. “She comes every weekend, so that’s not an issue,” he answers. “I like both my home and this centre.”

RAJU

Raju is just 12 and has only experimented with ganja. He says near his home in Badarpur there are several car repair shops. He would steal discarded car parts and sell them to a scrap dealer to raise money for his addiction. On any given day he would make up to 500 rupees.

He would also go to a dargah for free meals. He and his friends used to take a local train to get there, and for a long time it was their favourite haunt. They would spend hours roaming around in the open spaces close to the dargah and return home by evening. “We loved to just wander around the place, it was great fun.”

It was as he was returning from one of these jaunts that the staff of the childcare NGO Butterflies stopped him.
Raju’s mother is a sweeper with the MCD. He has no memory of his father who died when he was just two years old.

INSAF

As we were preparing to leave for the day, a woman rushed in holding on to a 16-year-old boy who looked completely dazed, could barely mumble and almost had to be dragged to the chair. He has been dependent on inhalants for more than two years.

His mother was in a terrible state, almost in tears as she narrated her ordeal. Insaf had spent three months at the centre and had been taken to a hospital for a final check-up. But within just a couple of days there he, along with two others, managed to escape from the hospital.

Insaf’s mother said her son frequently lost sense of his surroundings and would most likely not have found his way back if his friends had not guided him home.She now wanted Insaf to be re-admitted to the centre. At this the boy started sobbing, even as his mother tried to fight back her own tears. He was barely audible, and only his mother was able to make out what he was mumbling. What he was scared of was that he might get beaten up at the centre for fleeing the hospital. Whether he genuinely feared this or was just making it up to escape another spell at the centre was not clear.

The woman said she had sent Insaf to Mewar in Haryana to study at a madrassa and for six months he was off inhalants. But when he came for a month-long vacation he resumed the habit. The centre’s counselor, Ms D.S. Anuradha, felt that Insaf needed prolonged treatment at the hospital before being re-admitted for another spell of rehab. 

(Keep watching this blog for more stories from SPYM’s centres)

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Critics and Supporters of the Amended Act

Giving Children a Chance - Part 4