New Delhi: It was 5.30 by the clock, Dinesh who got up half an hour before is on a rush to the nearby LohaMandi bus stand from where he will be collecting copies of a host of newspapers that will be distributed in the Naraina Area. “I wake up every day much before I should, but still somewhere or the other I get late and I have to speed up my cycle”, said a tired Dinesh, after the day’s work was over.
A tall dark Dinesh Pal Singh, who is just nineteen or twenty, is the local “newspaperwala” of the NarainaGaon area, but that is not what he only does. Dinesh is also a second year political science student at the Sri Venkateshwara College and as he says “a keen lover of music”.
By the time he reached home, it was almost 8“O”clock and he has to get ready to reach the college by 8.45. Taking a quick bath, Dinesh dresses up in jeans and T-shirt and grabs a Banana from the kitchen before going out. “I have never missed a class, unless it’s too urgent, hope today also I reach in time”, said he while walking down to the bus stop, where from he boards a 442.
Dinesh has three sisters and a younger brother and belongs from a family where the word “impoverished” stands to be perfect. Dinesh’s father Ram Pal was a worker at a metal casting factory in the Naraina Industrial Area, but a few years back lost his job when the factory was sold. “Our hard times started since then, it was early 2008, all my children were small and I was clueless what to do.Dinesh was only in class eight then, but the way he supported me, which a father could never expect from such a young boy”, said Rampal who now owns a small shop selling paan, cigarette, gutkha adjacent to his house. “I made this house, joining every bits and pieces of my income, and it was Dinesh’s idea of renting parts of this house, which at least saved us from running out of food. Slowly I set up this shop, got my elder daughter married, and Dinesh also started working after giving his class ten final. I feel bad when I see him running early in the morning just to make our life a bit more comfortable, but nothing more I can do rather than feeling helpless”, he added.
The doorbell rang; it was Dinesh who came back with his brother and sisters. “Rishi, is in class ten and Sangita, the elder one is in twelfth whereas Smita is in 8. Every day they come back alone, but today my classes ended a bit early so I thought of accompanying them”, said he.
It was lunch time for the Singh family, all sitting together in that seven by nine feet room (the only room they have which houses an adjacent kitchen and a bathroom), exhibits the bond they share out of all odds. Pouring in a gulp of bhindikisabzi and rice, Dinesh says “I never mind working. You know the cost of living over here, I need to support my family, but I really feel bad the way people in my college looks upon me from the time they came to know that I am a newspaper vendor, it really hurts, but I feel proud when I give the money which I get at the end of the month to my father”.
The lunch was over; Dinesh washed his hands and dragged out a drawing book from a shelf and showcased the masterpiece he created last weekend. It was a painting of men running after a naked woman on a dark road. “This is what our society is all about today”, he asserted. May be he is right in describing his painting, but for others he is a creator par excellence.
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