In our cities, ever so often, when a sprawling slum becomes a festering eyesore, the authorities just shift it out. It’s simple enough, one night’s work, a couple of bulldozers and a dozen lathi-wielding policemen. When we wake up in the morning, we see the empty plot, perhaps a few things strewn about, a shoe missing its pair or a shred of old cloth. We shrug and move on, our scenery restored.
Holambi Kalan is a village, 40 minutes from New Delhi’s bustling ITO junction. It is here, tucked on one side of National Highway-1, far away for the city to see or smell, that large clusters of these slum dwellers have relocated. At the final turn to Holambi Kalan, as the gates of the railway crossing close behind you, you realize that it’s not just Delhi that has forgotten Holambi Kalan’s residents—time has forgotten them too.
Babita, with no last name or any real fixed address, is aware of this. She reckons she is around 17. She remembers being married, she cannot recall how old she was. “My sister was about 15 then and when a good proposal came for her, my parents decided that they would get me married on the same day too. That way, they wouldn’t have to incur the expenses of a wedding party twice,” she says in Hindi. Marriage of all the girls in the family on the same day is common in Holambi Kalan.
Now, it’s time for Babita to move in with her husband. But she does not want to go. The news that has been dripping in through the years is that her husband has grown up to be no-good, an alcoholic who hasn’t held a job down for too long. She has told her father that she will not go to live with her husband, and if he forces her she will just run away.
Mind opener: Babita (centre) and some other girls in Holambi Kalan can speak confidently about issues such as AIDS. Photo: Harikrishna Katragadda
This is a new phenomenon in Holambi Kalan; this emergence of girls who dare to know their mind and, horror of horrors, speak it. It’s a small flicker of modernity in a place stuck in the past. Most parents abhor it, but a few of them are indulging their daughters’ protests. Babita says that attending the meetings at Child Survival India (CSI) has changed her life in ways she could not even imagine. For the last nine years, CSI has been working actively with the community at Holambi Kalan. They talk to adolescent girls and teach them the rudiments of life that most of us take for granted. “I started coming to the CSI meetings and realized they were talking openly about things like menstruation, pregnancy, HIV, etc., and telling us what to do and what to avoid. I was happy that there was a place I could take my doubts and problems to,” says Babita.