In the celebration of winter, lots of visual comes to mind without even trying. All the beautiful bodies will be under few layers of clothes. Layers had different meaning throughout the history be it for protection or for security. People are developing over time for their own purposes. Fashionistas of this era will have more outfits to mix and match.
Then suddenly your eyes came upon the other side of the coin, on those people who in the winter with this cold weather lying on the roads without homes lying like cold bodies for nobody to care. Sometimes they curl up on a bench or in a doorway under filthy blankets or ragged coats. This image does remind us of the image of those ants that are dead while we are walking in our daily life. These bodies are covered with thin layers of discarded posters and blankets which cannot provide them with any warmth. The baskets that were presiding besides them to put clothes in and it is telling a story where they come from.
Imagine feeling lost and not knowing what to do or where to go. You spend each night in the musky weather on a bench, which you call your bed. As you wake up to the chattering noises each morning you decide which public place will allow you to clean yourself up. When you get hungry, you beg people for change to eat a cheap meal or you search the nearest garbage can. For the rest of the day you sit in the city hoping people will notice you and want to help out. If someone gives them money they may respond with prayers of thanks and blessings, or stare off into space feeling untouched by efforts to help.
I had the chance to meet threes type of people in 2017. My heart went to my feet when I step out of the auto-rikshaw at 5 am in the morning. Simply defined homelessness is the condition of people without homes, but according to United Nations, People who are living in slum dwellings are also considered as homeless people and by the same rationale, there are 20 million homeless individuals in Pakistan. These facts don’t do anything unless eyes gaze upon these lifeless faces asking for money. That money is not going to fill their bellies with food but to calm their nerves. The blood running through their vein is not blood anymore but chemicals that will make them forget about people moving around them. There is not a spot left on their body to prick anymore. While not many efforts have been made to help this contingent, their own struggles with modern day society make it a tale. How they struggle in their day to day live and succeed to overcome their overwhelming obstacles.
The stories they share by lying on the street will make a soul empty without any dignity and self-respect. We have been taught since childhood not to lose you or respect is everything in a person’s life. Under the layer were those people which are the ugly truth of the society can’t be ignored. But after seeing those lives without any regard raise many questions on how to raise our next generations.
