TOI : Runaway kids reunited with kin : Oct 11, 2007
Runaway kids reunited with kin
Archana Sharma I TNN
Mumbai: For the Sharmas, it was an emotional reunion with their son. Mithun,
16, had been missing for a year from their home in Farukhabad, UP. He
finally met his parents at Thane on Wednesday after they were informed about
his whereabouts by an NGO, Samatol Foundation, which puts street urchins
through a reformative camp and contacts their parents. Ten boys were
reunited with their parents on the last day of the workshop.
Reshma Sharma sat with her husband and brother-inlaw in a hall where the
children were to be handed over to their parents. When the children were
brought to the stage, she spotted her son and broke down. “We looked for him
everywhere,” Reshma told TOI. She said Mithun had been a truant, be it in
school or in the sweetmeat shop where he was asked to work. “He didn’t want
to study, so we asked him to work with the halwai. Then he said he wanted to
be a mechanic so we put him in a garage. But he walked out one day, just
like that,” she said. Mithun, whose father is a local contractor, said he
was plain bored. “I was bored of studying as well as working. So I went to
Delhi, then to Haridwar. I worked there with an agarbatti seller. But he
didn’t pay me, so I came to Mumbai.” Here he slept at the station and got
used to smoking and sniffing solution.
He was spotted by the Foundation and was asked to join a camp in
Ambarnath. Here he was taught the value of relationships, love and the
dangers of drugs. This convinced Mithun to part with his residential address
and he gave the phone number of the garage where he used to work. When he
met his mother, she said, “Kitna dubla ho gaya hai.”
Vijay Jadhav of Samatol Foundation said, “Every day 150 children come to
Mumbai and live at the stations. They get used to drugs and are sexually
abused. We picked up many boys and told them that earning a few rupees is
not freedom. Having the liberty to watch a film is not life. Through
slideshows and meditation, we explained to them the value of parents. The
boys who claimed they were orphans, came up with contact details of their
parents.”
Hazratbi Shaikh, a divorcee, had come from Gulbarga in Karnataka to take
her son Shahrukh (10) home. The little boy spoke about how he had roamed
about on railway platforms barefoot and hungry even as his mother sobbed
into her dupatta. “Uncle came to us and said he would take us for a picnic.
We agreed. But after the picnic, he took us to the camp. I wanted to run
away. But since we got food as per a time-table and were given shoes, I
decided to stay back,” said Shahrukh.
Not everyone was as happy as the Shaikhs and the Sharmas. Ramlu Inkati,
a labourer from Hyderabad was initially proud to find his son Narsimlu (12)
in a smart blue T-shirt and trousers, but when he was reunited, he scolded
him for wasting his money.
Meanwhile, the Sharmas are going on a tour of Mumbai. “We have never
gone anywhere but this boy has brought us this far,” Reshma said. And their
tour guide? Mithun, who by now knows the city like the back of his hand.
FAMILY VALUES: Mithun Sharma was reunited with his parents a year after he
ran away from his home in Farukhabad in UP
Publication:Times Of India Mumbai; Date:Oct 11, 2007; Section:Times City;
Page Number:5