Hum bhi to nagrik hain: A day in the life of a beggar at a Delhi temple

Savitri is one of the many beggars outside the Pracheen Hanuman Mandir at Connaught Place. Unlike others here who have been begging for 15-20 years, she started only a year ago.

Now, come winter, summer or the rains, a corner on the right side of the temple courtyard is home for her and her son Krishna.

In the open, their day begins early. Since some bones below her neck swelled up, affecting her nerves, Savitri says, she is immobile and Krishna has to help her. “I wake up around 5 am, and he takes me to a nearby tap and helps me bathe. Once we are back, he cooks rice and curry on a stove. Then he leaves for work,” she says, pointing at a three-wheeler for the disabled next to her that doubles up as a storage cabinet. They keep the stove, a couple of utensils and their clothes there.

Krishna does odd jobs, like pulling carts. Before leaving for work, Krishna places the three-wheeler and Savitri’s wheelchair — both donated by temple visitors — in such a position so that they face each other, and puts a sheet over them to make a canopy for his mother, where she spends her day.

“I usually get up only when Krishna returns in the evening,” says Savitri, pointing to a plastic container that she uses to relieve herself.

Today, Krishna, who is in his 30s, isn’t going out. So he spends the afternoon sleeping beside the wheelchair, unmindful of the flies.

Unlike other beggars in the compound who make around Rs 200 a day, Savitri manages barely Rs 20. On Tuesdays, considered auspicious by Hanuman worshippers, this goes up to Rs 500. “I cannot walk, so I can’t chase people around. But some regular visitors come to me,” she says.

One of the old beggars in the compound, a middle-aged woman with an amputated right arm, comes and sits beside her, fiddling with her phone.

Savitri starts talking about her better times. “I was married at 15. I am from Allahabad and my husband was from Ayodhya. He had a job at a Philips unit in Delhi, and we lived at a rented place in Paharganj.” Her husband, Ram Singh, later started a TV repair shop. The couple had two sons and a daughter.

Then, about 13 years ago, Ram Singh died of throat cancer. “We had to sell the shop to fund his treatment,” Savitri says, as a devotee hands her a pack of Parle G biscuits.

Her daughter is married and stays in Sonia Vihar. Her younger son, she says, went missing a few years ago.

About one-and-a-half years ago, Savitri herself developed a cervical problem. “Since then, I can’t walk. We spent all that we had saved. Finally, we came to this temple,” she says.

Now all that remains of her previous life is a title other beggars use to address her: “Paharganj wali Amma”.

Savitri says she had started visiting Hanuman Mandir after her husband’s death. “I would come here two-three times a week. One day, I saw someone distributing biscuits. When I put my hand forward, this woman (pointing to the one sitting next to her) pushed me and told me to join the queue. She even persuaded someone to donate this wheelchair,” says Savitri.

It is around 5 pm and Krishna has woken up. As he and Savitri discuss the prospect of having tea, a woman devotee, standing near a tea stall in the temple building, asks if they would like to have kachauri or tea.

“Tea, but from the shop under that tree,” says Savitri, pointing some distance away.

The woman, confused, joins her family members.

Krishna clarifies, “The stall in the temple building serves watery tea.”

By now beggars on the premises have queued up. The woman who had been sitting next to Savitri is managing the queue, shoving many away. “Hatte-katte naujawan, tum log kyun aate ho (You are able-bodied. Why do you come here)?” she is heard admonishing.

Savitri suddenly lets out a shout. One of the many monkeys in the compound has discreetly removed a pack of flour kept on her three-wheeler and spilled its contents on the floor. Krishna scares the monkey away, then scrapes the flour off the floor and into a dust bin.

Savitri shrugs, talking of her little blessings. “Earlier, I could not even get up. But yesterday, I held this pole here and stood up and sat down four times. It’s all god’s grace.”

Soon, four men march up to Savitri, asking Krishna and her to take their belongings and move away from the temple. Savitri stands her ground. “Yeh mandir hai, main bhi dekhti hoon mujhe kaun hatata hai (This is a temple, let me see who can remove me),” she says.

A war of words ensues. It ends with Krishna assuring the men that he will move their “set-up” the next day. The men leave.

Savitri fumes, “They are from the tea shop in the temple building. Just because I told the woman I don’t want to have their tea, they came to scare me. But I am not scared.”

While she doesn’t know about the now-abandoned Delhi government plan, Savitri says she has been approached several times to move to government-run ‘Rain Baseras (night shelters)’. “No way,” she says, “I’ve heard all sorts of nasty things happen there.”

Asked about the shelved drive, Ashwani Kumar, secretary of the Delhi Social Welfare Department, is careful. “Rounding up beggars and putting them in remand homes has not worked and will not work. The problem has its roots in the general level of poverty in society. To cater to the most vulnerable section of the elderly, the department is trying to expand the capacity of our old age-homes,” he says.

Evening has set in, and the crowd at the temple has thinned. Savitri talks about her last trip to Allahabad, around a month ago, to attend a wedding. “My relatives don’t know I beg in Delhi,” she says. “I spent freely, just like I did when my husband was alive.”

Asked why she did not reach out to her relatives for help, Savitri says, with little irony, “I’m a Rajput, I won’t beg before anyone.”

She claims even her daughter is not aware of her financial situation, and that they haven’t been in touch since Savitri fell ill.

Every night, after all the devotees have left, the temple is cleaned. The cleaners put Savitri on her wheelchair before sweeping the part of the compound she occupies.

Settling in for the night, Savitri says, “On normal days, I sleep early. But on Tuesdays, the temple is crowded till late. Cleaning happens around 1 am. Till then, I have to stay up.”