… valli and devika
The streets of most cities in India will throw all sorts of horrors at you, every heartbreaking story and plaintive look, every imaginable hustle, all expecting a few rupees. Most travellers on long stays get a bit hardened towards this. Most Indians are. Generally it seems that the most (financially) effective beggars are the most horrifying … not out of compassion I think, but purely so that particular beggar doesn’t have to come onto the street for another week or so, so people won’t be confronted by whatever excruciating deformity is their stock in trade … certainly in the big metros it seems to work like this. Remembering India now after a few months in Europe, the harshest and most genuinely heartbreaking story from the streets is not born of ugliness and deformity, but quite the opposite.
Valli is about 17, living on the streets of Chennai, mainly around the Triplicaine area. She is pretty, thin, a bit rough, but clean… speaks excellent english, better than most of the shopkeepers and middle class residents. I met her when I first arrived at Broadlands, doing a small rice hustle. She is carrying a small baby … not hers, she has borrowed/rented it from the mother … this is a pretty standard practise … small babies pull heart strings and open wallets … she hustles me to buy rice for the family … at an inflated price, which she splits with the shopkeeper … in my first few days I fall for this one (once only … I check the price of rice later). But over the weeks, she talks with me, learns a wierd secret handshake, every small conversation will end with a request for rupees … if I’m buying something when I run into her she will scan the number of bills in my wallet and ask for whatever’s loose. Sometimes I give her a bill to shut her up, or a beer (very expensive for someone on the streets at about 80Rs). After a few weeks I’m getting very pissed with her … ‘I’m not your father or husband I like you but … no’. Once I dink her on a hire bike down to Marina beach. The energy is slightly flirtatious, but stops short of being sexual. I don’t give money to her friends, if she wants to share that’s fine by me. After 3 weeks, my wallet is closed to her … I’m over being easy … and 2 weeks later I move down to the beach.
4 months later, I return to Chennai. I run into Valli within a day or two. She seems a harder and a lot less bright. Offers to buy me a juice the tells me a patently untrue story about her grandmother needing expensive medicine (I would have heard this before if true). I buy the juices, thank her for the story. She has a bad sore on her arm … over the next few weeks it stays looking ugly. But she has a friend in Mamallapuram who is getting her work. I talk to ‘the bouncing czech’ about her. He’s been in Chennai many times over the years, and just about everywhere else. He says she’s been using glue … the easy street high .. and is starting to work as a prostitute. Valli and I are friendly still for the remaining weeks, but there is far more reserve.
Devika is around 8, and is a very very bright kid. Speaks English exceptionally well … better than anyone in her family. We meet the first time I’m in Chennai, and she draws a picture of her house in my notebook. On my return she remembers me … hussles for a bag of rice for her family. I buy the rice, correct price, and keep the change. She also is a bit harder now. But she invites me for games with stones played a chalk drawn board on the ashphalt of a side street. We talk sometimes … her family is in a corner of a side street near Broadlands. More details from the bouncing czech. Her parents actually do have a house, granted by the government slum clearance agency, but they rent it out and prefer to be on the streets where they can make a hussling life and where the rest of their friends and family are. Devika’s brother (round 10) goes to school. I see him occasionally. He seems a bit dim, barely speaks English at all. Devika could go to school, but her parents keep her away from it. She is a money earner for the family, putting her 8 year old cuteness to work hussling tourists. And why would you send a girl to school anyway (!because she’s intelligent and has the potential to get a good job in modern india if she has the education, you morons!) … held back by her parents, it’s hard to say what will happen (or maybe easy to say but unspeakable).
So what’s the difference between Valli and Devika … not much, they probably both spent there first two years as rent-a-babes … about 10 years, is all.
