Reach Out And Change A Life

I woke up some time back to the disturbing picture in the papers, of a 14-year-old housemaid who was battered by a TV starlet for having eaten some shrikhand from her refrigerator without taking her permission. I have been watching some discussions on television on the subject but there are no solutions. Should children be allowed to work? Should parents who send their children out to work like this be prosecuted? What is the way out of this evil? There are no answers.

In a poor country like India, there is no option for many children but to work and earn their own livelihood. I have never written about the four young boys who worked in my company Tracinema when it was at its peak. I have never spoken about Loku, Vishnu, Inder and Anil because till now they were busy building their lives. Today, I feel comfortable telling their stories because the four of them have conquered such heights that my account will not take away from their achievements. I am telling this story now  because it is a time for it to be told.

It was way back in the early 90’s, that I found a boy at my door, asking for work. He was Nepalese, barely 10-years-old, red cheeked, curly haired with round soulful eyes. He told me that my building’s watchman, his uncle had asked him to go from door to door in search for a job. The watchman had no place to keep him in Bombay. The boy had arrived that morning from a remote village in Nepal and had spent the whole day looking for a job which would give him a place to sleep.

The watchman told me that although the boy did not know housework, he would learn fast and do anything I asked him to. I asked this most beautiful looking child what his name was, and he said, “Loknath Pandey.” I told him he could stay at my house. The next morning when I was ready to leave for my shoot at Filmcity, I asked Loku to accompany me.

On my sets, he kept following me around the whole day, so I gave him the duty to carry my files for me. This went on for days, then weeks and finally months. An year into his life with me, Loku could speak broken Hindi and had become the manager of all my files and trivia which I would carry to work and bring back, having quickly learnt to manage the episodic scripts for shooting, then editing and finally putting them away in archives.

The rest of my unit gave him a lot of importance and he was so cute and irresistible that everyone, from the actors to the crew would want to pull his cheeks and hug him. Then there was this boy Inder, the only other child working on my set who was about Loku’s age and was employed by the production staff to serve tea to the crew. He was tall and lanky, and an extremely wise  Bihari boy. One day when he was giving me a cuppa, I noticed him staring at Loku.

I asked him where he lived and he said he slept at the studio as he had no home in the city. I asked him to accompany me home after pack up that evening and told my staff not to employ children who were below the age of 18 henceforth. We already had another boy called Anil working and living in our office, who was a little older than these two. Anil by then had requested me to promote him to Loku’s position with my business partner at the time, Raman Kumar, who was directing two other shows which our company was producing. So he was now the ‘Manager’ of all the filing for the show Tara which was a super hit during that time.

Inder moved in with me as well, much to my housekeeper’s despair, yet she treated both the boys with a lot of care, ensuring they wore clean clothes and were well fed. My house became too crowded for me, so I moved into a bigger apartment where these two boys could have a room as well as beds to sleep on. One day Loku came to me with a request. He told me that he had a brother called Vishnu who was an year older to him and who worked in Lucknow. He said that Vishnu was unwell and if I’d permit, he would ask him to come to Bombay and stay with us for a few days. I agreed.

His brother arrived within a week. Vishnu was an epileptic child and once    we got him treated, he never had a relapse. Now my house became more or less like a hostel for these boys by night, and a creative office for me by day. The boys would leave for shootings early in the morning in the production cars, where they were now assisting other directors hired by the company. Vishnu couldn’t keep up with the hectic pace of shooting because of his health, so I got him to start working as an assistant to the editors.

They would all come back at different times, and tell me excitedly about their work. Anil, who was by now an assistant director  was their role model, because he was sharp, astute and on fire when it came to work. He had also moved into my house from the office with the other three boys and inspired Loku, Inder and Vishnu to push themselves beyond their capabilities.

One day I overheard Anil telling the rest of the boys, that he wished he knew English. He was telling them that he could have been a chief assistant. The only reason he was not was that the actors were not ready to deal with him as he could not speak English fluently.I employed an English teacher for the boys the next day.

Loku and Inder were roughly 15-years-old, Vishnu 16 and Anil was about 18. The teacher would arrive at my place at 6:am, teach the boys to speak, read and write English for two hours, and then the boys would leave for their respective shoots.Within an year, all four of them were transformed. Anil was now a dude. Loku, Inder and Vishnu were dynamite. They were doing very well at work and like sponges were soaking every new experience hungrily.

They would party with me and my friends and life went on. Anil fell in love with Vandana, who was an associate writer with me at the time and moved out on his own. He was earning very well by then. I moved into an even bigger house because I had adopted my daughter Ritchelle by then, who was 10-years-old when she came to me.

Loku, Inder and Vishnu stayed with me till all of them  turned 18, and then I let them go into an independent dwelling which was watched over by me regularly for some more time. All of them continued to learn English for years later even after my company had downed it shutters and they were working for other production houses in Bombay. Anil had Vandana to guide him and Loku, Inder and Vishnu were guided by their second teacher Darshana, who had stopped taking money from me to teach them.

Anil went on to direct some of the top rated shows on television including Kyunki… and Kahani…, and can be easily rated amongst the top 10 directors on television today. Happily married to Vandana, he has three children. Loku is the director of the top rated Mata Ki Chowki on Sahara TV, and Inder was directing the show Dulhan on Zee TV until recently. Vishnu is a full fledged editor and works on some of the best shows on TV.

All four boys live in apartments bought with their own savings and dream now of building holiday homes outside Bombay. There are numerous such stories of children, in the film and television industry alone, who like Anil, Loku, Inder and Vishnu, have made it too.

I admit, that I must have overdone it, but I had the blessings of God who had given me so much, that I was able to do what I did. Some detractors would ask me if I thought I was God, and I would only smile and think to myself that I was only doing what every person should be doing. It was all coming so easy because the fire in the kids was enabling me to provide for them.

For the boys were so driven and so grateful that they didn’t waste a single day, an hour, a minute and never took even a second of their lives for granted. If each person or even family were to take it upon themselves to give one child an opportunity to build  his/her life, the problem of child labor and brutality towards children would end in no time.

Institutionalizing and pontificating can never be the solution for something which can only be resolved when everyone collectively is sensitized to the issue. Every school curriculum must teach children to do something for those who are not as fortunate as they are. The collective conscience of the whole nation must be shaken through a program or appeal which can alter the way people treat children in general. Only then acts of abuse will cease to occur. The picture of the battered 14-year-old should be published in the papers everyday, for it to haunt us and force us to do something about it.

Vinta Nanda is a film maker, writer and social activist.  She has   written, directed and/or produced trail blazing TV shows like Tara, Raahat, Kabhie Kabhie, Aur Phir Ek Din and Miilee and also   made several documentary films on women’s issues. Her first feature film, White Noise won acclaim at the Kara Film Festival, Pune International Film Festival, Florence and Seattle Indian Film Festivals. Vinta blogs on www.vinatananda.blogspot.com and has written for The Times of India, Tehelka, Indian Express, Mumbai Mirror, Sahara Times and Mid Day. Vinta is also the President of the NGO ‘The Village Project India,’ is producing two TV shows and will be producing and directing her next feature Zindagi Paradiso shortly.