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Tribute to The Street Kids of Mumbai Documentary  


I  used to pick pockets
And steal tomato at the market place
I beg on the streets of Mumbai, India’s largest city
I stop drivers and ask for spare change 
I usually get a few rupees -25 cents
I’m a runaway 
I feel like I’m eleven, 
It’s all my mothers fault 
She beat me when I wouldn’t fetch water 
Well, my birth mother died
My father’s new wife felt pleasure in inflicting pain onto another woman’s child 

Street gangs and drug dealers roam these streets 
Thugs are thieves
They snatch chains from women’s necks

 An eleven year old boy puts his few possessions on a tree
They have stollen his clothes, blanket and mat 
The twenty year old who looks after us 
Was struck by a train
He was drunk and taking a walk 
When the train cut his leg off 
He knows these streets well
He looks after us and our money 
He introduced us to drugs 
One of it , whitener, gets inhaled from a cloth 
We are a gang
And he’s the leader 
I use the substance every day
And get high off of it

What are you doing here?
You give this town a bad name
An officer says to us

Once a week the church gives us some cclothes and some food to eat
Eat everything and fill your stomachs 
When they submerge the idol, [god of war ,
Signaling the end of the monsoon season]
People drop money 
We dive in after the coins and catch them 
Signaling the end of the monsoon season]

I go and run into the the sea 
I get a bath, too
I jump up and down and go under 

The gang leader has taken him away
Away from there hangout place
The guys say that he does dirty things
The boy said never to him 
An outreach person with lived experience
Is worried he’s been abducted 
And goes out to find him
Our gang leader denied all the allegations 
And was smack by police
They gave him a warning
Next time he’s off to the big house

I’m going to a boarding school for homeless boys 
I’m not scared
I’ll have no problem making friends 
I’ll tell them I have none 
I’ll sweet talk them
They may be bigger than me
But every small kid gets big one day
He will first have to be weaned off drugs,
His first two months there

Us twins love and fight
We go everywhere together
We sell scrap metal and plastic bottles 
We find and sell used pots and pans and glassware
Our father is an alcoholic
That man gives me nothing but trouble , says mum
It’s been three years since we’ve gone 
When we did go, we skipped school 
And lied about our where-abouts 
We roamed the streets and came back home at 6’0 clock
Just in time for mum’s home cooking 
Half of our wage we keep 
The other goes to mum
We dropped out,
When our mum found out,
We got a beating

Mama sells watermelon 
And is too busy to keep and eye on us
When dad is sober, he is nice
When drunk, he swears 
Me and my twin brother go to bed and pretend to slumber
Scared , under our blankets ,
Our heads are over 

A young girl , at seven years sells flowers 
I stop cars and pitch a line 
It’s raining and umbrella she’s without 
With confidence and uncertainty 
She tells a driver 
I’m going to eat lentil and rice
I work even until midnight

Like many others, I live in the slums 
In a room with grandmama and my two 
brothers and our new baby brother mum dumped on us
She might be married now
She abandoned us
My grandma is very special to me 
She helps me bathe and feeds me
She helps me do laundry



Marckincia Jean
Narrative 
06/18/19
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