WHAT
WENT WRONG - 7
My name is Zulekha aged
30 years, living in one of the slums of Delhi with my second husband and four children.
Originally coming from the western part of Uttar Pradesh, I am living in Delhi for the last 15
years now.
Born to a poor family, I am the fifth amongst seven children of my parents - one brother and
six sisters. My father used to work at a tailoring shop in Delhi and my mother used to work as
house maid to make two ends meet. Due to acute poverty, none of us could go to school and in
fact, had to help our mother when she used to go out for work in different houses. I have seen
hunger and dearth of necessities from very close quarters.
My father soon had to face the consequences of working overtime in order to fend for the
family. He developed Tuberculosis and could not continue working the way he used to. Survival
became very difficult and we had to toil very hard to keep the house fires burning. My
father's illness claimed his life but not before my parents had managed to marry off my three
elder sisters.
I entered my teens but the teen dreams were engulfed in the clouds of deprivation. I had to
undertake odd jobs here and there, sometimes picking rags, selling vegetables or washing
dishes in the neighborhood. One day my mother fell down from the stairs while at work and
broke her leg. My mother was growing weak but continued working. When she was not well, my
sisters and me went to do her chores for her. My brother who was the eldest, did not work at
all and in fact, started giving us trouble. He used to get violent at times and even beat my
mother when we could not give him money for his expenses. This continued till I approached
fifteen.
My mother managed to find a suitable match for me and I was married to Ahmad. With stars in my
eyes, I entered a new phase in my life to discover it was no different from my past. My
mother-in-law started tormenting me from the very first day of my married life. I discovered
it later that it was due to the fact that my mother was not able to accede to their demands
which kept on piling up. All her other daughter-in-laws had brought a lot of dowry with them
except myself. As the days progressed, the torture kept increasing. She used to accuse me of
stealing things even food items. Ahmad too used to be on the side of my mother-in-law and has
started to inflict physical injuries on me. During one of his many violent moods, he tried to
hit me with a farm knife on my head and while trying to ward off the blow with my had, I got a
deep cut on my left hand palm which still reminds me of my horrendous past.
When the conditions worsened, my cousin Hussain, who used to live in Delhi brought me with
him. I started working in the houses here. However, when husband learnt of my living in Delhi,
he too came here and I found that he had changed. He was a better person now. Probably he used
to torture me under the influence of his mother in the past. Seeing his interest, my cousin
got him a cycle rickshaw and Ahmad started earning. Later, Hussain took my husband to his
friend who taught him the job of polishing metals. Ahmad soon started working in the new
field. That was perhaps the best part of my life. I had four children, a son and three
daughters. But life had other things in store for me.
My cousin had to leave his place and settle somewhere else. We too had to shift and we found
refuge in a slum. Having taken a place on rent, we began life afresh. However, the slums had
their own problems. My husband got in bad company and a man who never used to smoke even, got
hooked to drugs. Drugs were easily available and his entire earning started to go to his
addiction. This resulted soon in starvation. For the sake of my children, I started working as
a housemaid, to which my husband objected. Eventually, he agreed to it as it became the only
source of our living and funded his drugs. Ahmad left working all together and stayed home
consuming drugs which slowly became expensive to fund. He soon demanded all the money I used
to earn, sold household goods and even got violent with me when I resented. Hunger returned in
the house.
I was approached by a neighbor who advised me to get in the trade of drug trafficking. I
consented due to poverty and for my children. She gave me drugs to be sold on credit at first,
and the earnings soon became enough to work on my own. Within a year I had become an expert in
the trade. Off course, I had to find my ways through the authorities, which I did by bribing
them. The police knew about my activities but a Five hundred rupee consideration per week got
me past them, unhindered. Life was going smoothly till disaster struck.
One day, I had a fight with my husband and the policemen, who were passing by, intervened.
When they were rebuffed, they retaliated and started beating me and my husband. Matters became
unpleasant. The local police was upset with me, and I was soon at the receiving end of their
wrath. I was arrested on drug peddling charges and jailed.
Jail was frightening at first, but I soon adjusted myself. I learnt that my husband siphoned
off the money I had saved outside and that he was seriously ill. My children were not being
cared for. I managed to get two of my daughters inside the prison to stay with me. My cousin
took my son away. My elder daughter had to work in houses to support her father. My husband
soon died as he could not get proper treatment for his addiction.
I got myself enrolled in the crèche training program being run in the jail by Navjyoti - an
NGO. Apart from the stipend I used to get from them, I started doing the chores of other women
inmates and earned enough to support the cost of necessities of myself and my children living
with me. My two daughters were identified by India Vision Foundation another NGO working in
the prisons and put in residential convent schools outside the prison. I managed to
effectively use my time during the twenty-eight months of imprisonment and the lengthy
judicial trial before I was eventually released - in fact acquitted.
Upon release, I came back home with my savings from the jail and was able to begin a new life
with the expertise I had acquired in the jail. I am still working with Navjyoti and running
one of their crèches in the slums. My three children go to school thanks to the India Vision
Foundation. The fourth is too small to go to school. I have remarried and hope to live happily
now - away from drugs and related miseries.
Looking back, I can say that poverty and illiteracy make you very vulnerable especially during
compelling circumstances. One shouldn't be married early too. The police too should have
played its role and checked me during my initial trafficking days. They knew everything but
they never tried to prevent it. In fact, they encouraged me to peddle drugs. Further, there is
no check on the drug trade which is flourishing in the slums of Delhi. |
