Delhi’s Rain Basera - An Illusion of Urban Shelters

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Delhi’s Rain Basera - An Illusion of Urban Shelters

Delhi’s concerns with the homeless in addition to the gigantic slum dwellings represent an urban phenomenon prevalent in many of the metropolitan cities across the globe. These get much worse in the advancing winter especially when there is an acute shortage of shelters as thousands march on to sleep on the chilly footpaths.

Stale and extremely unsanitary, the jam-packed Night shelters, incensed by the stagnant odor, precarious and an inhospitable environment, are shared simultaneously by a number of humans, dogs and cats alike. The flickering bonfire and the hostile winter under the Nehru Place flyover, at Sarai kale khan, the newly erected Okhla flyover, Dhaula Kuan, Chandni Chowk adding close to 80 temporary night shelters in all extend some opportune respite to the needy. The people reside under extreme harsh conditions as a lot more than the maximum number cram up every night and also try a bleak chance at that free meal. The four storey building or the flyover, a shack or a terminal/tube, they all act as single home to a multitude of homeless. Some are from Rajasthan, some from Bihar, some from Bengal and some drunk and in need of company. Residents wander far and wide in search of food and some lucky relish the intestines of Chicken or Mutton! The little-ones spend their days roaming the nearby sites in packs tagged along by that tiny puppy from their shack, shared further on with 20 odd people without any prospect of education or a future.

All of this merely sheds valuable insights on an ‘Impeccable’ aspect of our Society; the Grandiose Utopian Delhi culture that boasts of her prosperity in leaps and bound remarkably and has chosen to ignore the penury at hand!

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...cal and mental health, beefed up with a lavish child care programme and other community-based services certainly illuminate the gloomy arena. The aim should be to engage and furnish alternate means of livelihood ranging from Soup kitchens, Organic farms, Cottage Industry or any other forms of local services, disarming the discretion from them so they may not wander back into the eclipse and once again tread the ‘paths of destruction’. Winter has always requested special attention and care from the administration over the issue. As the Global warming escalates, the cataclysm may up the ante and further deteriorate the scenario. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if everyone had a clean and quite place to resort to, a nice comfy bed to rest their tired feet on, the basic civic amenities and some or the other form economic engagement?

The urban dreams over! Help the homeless!

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