| In Focus |
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 The Seller of Scraps
Disability and hardship have not broken Vivek’s will to survive
“I am disabled but that doesn’t mean I can’t work. My body aches cycling and carrying the heavy stuff. When I come back, I am dead tired but this is life.” Vivek’s voice may be weary but his spirit is not. At 36, he has experienced far more than many and this shows in the shadows under his eyes, his slightly fatigued manner, his permanently sleepy air. But his looks belie his energy and his indomitable will to survive.
A seller of scrap material, Vivek has made the shining lanes of Chandigarh his home since 1997. On a cycle, he roams the tricity (Chandigarh, Mohali and Panchkula) shouting ‘tin, dibba, botal, raddi akhbar bechh lo’ (sell your scrap material). When he returns to his warehouse-cum-house in the evenings, his cycle loaded with the waste of other people’s homes and yards, he is exhausted. He finishes sorting it by 9 pm, which is when he allows himself a break and treats himself at a nearby dhaba.
Vivek’s life reads like a cavalcade of disasters and twists of unhappy fate. Born in Uttar Pradesh in a family of pandits, Vivek studied up to standard four before running away from home. “Our school boys were going for a picnic,” he explains. “We were asked to take Rs. 170/- each. I asked my father to give the money. He refused. I got angry and fought with him. Then I decided to steal the money. He came to know about that and wanted to beat me. Somehow I escaped. While running away from the house, I told him that I would not go back.”
He traveled to a distant village where he did odd jobs until he saved enough to travel to Chandigarh. But here, fate decided to grimace instead of smile. He fell ill in Chandigarh and was admitted to the hospital. When he returned home, he found that his money and belongings had been stolen. He was destitute. A period of intense hardship followed. He spent many days on the road. Hunger and desperation drove him to work as a household servant even though he did not want to. Then gradually, he learned how to drive and looked for work as a driver. He was hired by a dairy owner. His new employer treated him well, like his own son. He was given his own room. Life seemed to have looked up.
Until, he had a head-on collision with a truck. The accident left him blonded and crippled. “I was totally crushed inside,” he recounts. “I was in hospital for one and a half years. My skull was broken in many places. Somehow I was alive. When I was discharged from the hospital, I had lost my sight and could hardly hear. I didn’t want to live.”
“I left the house where I was living and went out to find some work. I had some money with me. But the money and my clothes were stolen while I was sleeping. So I had nothing to wear except the pyjamas I was wearing,” he adds, his voice cracking slightly.
Vivek traveled to his uncle’s house in Shillong in the hope that they would take him in. But they did not and he was again forced to live on pavements until a kind family gave him work and some money. He returned to Chandigarh, bought an old bicycle and started collecting plastic and waste material from the road side to sell. “I used to earn Rs. 25 -30 per day, barely enough for food. No shelter. Three years I worked like this and slept on the footpath. I was fed up of this life. I wanted to kill myself but couldn’t dare to do it,” he says.
“I started to drink one day. When I was drunk, I heard some one calling me. It was the sound of prayer from a nearby church. I went there and some people prayed for me. After this, I feel my life improved. My work increased and I started buying and selling scrap instead of picking it up from the road. Working honestly brought me a good name and goodwill.”
Recently, Vivek approached the India Regional Microcredit Enterprise project and took a loan with a low interest rate. He wanted to buy new stock for his business. “This made me earn good profit. I have started paying back my loan with interest,” he says.
Who know’s what tomorrow will bring for Vivek—but one thing is clear, he will survive it.
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