Bengali Basti

Driving down the main road of Vasant Kunj in Musoodpur you may notice the faint smell of garbage as you pass a slum area on your left (that's if you're driving from Saket). It's quite hard to see from the main road as it is a way in; most probably you wouldn't have noticed it at all especially if you're in an ac car with your windows up. In fat the only reason I know it exists is because there are people I know who work there. It doesn't actually have a name but Rajan, who starte a school there calls it the Bengali Basti; which makes perfect sense since most of the people living there are refugees from the borders of West Bengal and Bangladesh. With no way of earning a living in their home towns they made their way to Delhi with the hope of a bette future. Adn were they successful? I don't know...

Delhi, according to me, is such a difficult city to live in, If you've been to places such as Cehnnai, Keralal, or Shillong you notice that people there, live in community; they look out for each other, they are involved in each others lives; neighbors know each other's names; which isn't the case in most oarts of Delhi. Well at least not in my neighborhood. The other day my colleague and I went to meen someone in an Adventure Equipment Company and in the course of our conversation, we found we lived in the same neighborhood, three houses apart! That's Delhi.

So if you're poor and in need, where does that leave you; pretty much nowhere. I mean, how many of us are actually happy to see a street kid come and beg at our window. It's pretty annoying isn't it? Especially if you're in an auto-rikshaw...sweltering in the heat. The other day I was doing some research on why there are so many refuees entering Delhi and learnt some stuff that made me think. many of these people have actually been displaced, meaning kicked out of their homes. And why...well one of the reasons is so that big cities like Delhi, can be supplied with electricity or water-through dam, power plants, etc. Isn't that weird; and isn't it kind of ironic that though we find these people so annoting, we wouldn't be able to survive withouth them. I mean seriously, we've got maids (in other countries only the rich and famous have maids), we've got people who will build our houses, our malls, our roads...for hardly any wages at all. Isn't it strange that they build our malls and would never be allowed to step in.

So, what is the Bengali Basti like? Well, pretty much like any other slum. It's built on a rubbish dump (hence the smell), with houses made of cardboard boxes. The people living here sort garbage to earn a livelihood. So it you live close to the area...you now know where your garbage ends up.

Rajan, works and has worked a lot with the poor and underprivileged in Up, Uttrakhund and Delhi. After visiting them a number of times, parents in the Bengali Basti asked if he would help start a school for their children. Maybe the better future they had dreamed of could be got for their children.

At the moment four people teach in the slum school five days a week. Rajan rented two small cardboard box rooms and these have become the school, 'Apna School'. The children learn basic literacy and a few, who have had little more education have been enrolled into the National Open School.

Rajan wants to start a community college here, so that children can develop vocational skills, especially some of the older student; they long to learn to use computers, that magic world of cyber space which is way out there, beyond their reach. He wants skilled teachers who give these children an amazing education. He w ants the children to be able to break out of the vicious cycle of poverty. Why aren't there more people like Rajan?

We hope that with the money that this bike trip has raised, the Bengali Basti School will be able to grow in the way Rajan has desired.