Over the past few months, a video of a street urchin of Delhi has become viral. In the video, the boy called Kamlesh, around 13 years of age, speaks of his drug addiction. The video is a clip from a documentary called Nashebaaz - The Dying People Of Delhi by writer and filmmaker Dheeraj Sharma, and reveals some horrifying facts about drug abuse in the nation’s capital city. It also reveals some other unfortunate truths about the way people react to such issues.
In the video, Kamlesh speaks about his addiction in a carefree way, describing his life as a rag-picker and drug addict as ‘mast’ or cool. The panache and the self-confident flair with which he speaks appears to have caught people’s fancy and the video has not only gone viral; it has also become the ‘inspiration’ for songs and memes.
This is utterly heartbreaking. It is horrifying that there are so many blameless young children, either abandoned or neglected on the streets of the capital. They are robbed of their childhood and are living a dangerous, insecure life without any kind of future. These children are viewed without much compassion or the desire to rescue them from a hellish life. They are in fact looked upon as untouchables, as criminals and a menace to society. For many, these children are not the victims of their circumstances. Rather, they are identified as inconvenient hindrances that must be driven away from the ‘better’ neighbourhoods and prevented from impinging upon the lives of ‘decent’ people.
Many of the comments below the video are flippant and uncaring. Some deteriorate into an abusive war of words with no regard for the grave issue of drug addiction among the homeless. There appears to be a very cavalier attitude towards a systemic, widespread problem; as witnessed by the many songs that have been made using Kamlesh’s voice in the video. For some reason, some people thought that the plight of Kamlesh is funny.
A number of EDM songs have come up using bits of what Kamlesh said. Even his pronunciation of the word ‘solution’ (apparently street slang for some drug) is made fun of: the songs are called ‘Kamlesh Soluchan’ songs. A number of videos; such as the dubbing of a scene from 3 Idiots, another claiming that Kamlesh is now rehabilitated and attending school, and a video about “Kamlesh’s girlfriend’ are doing the rounds. It would seem that any social evil, any misfortune can be appropriated for so-called entertainment. Laughing at this boy’s sad, sad life is apparently quite OK.
Kamlesh seems to like his life – probably because he doesn’t know any other. His life is a dead-end without hope; it is one that could result in death at any time. The fact that people’s reaction to this video is that of unfeeling laughter seems to suggest that most people cannot care less about the grim situation on the ground. As long as the homeless, the beggars, the addicts and the petty criminals are outside the periphery of our safe, cocooned, self-satisfied lives, we couldn’t care less what happens to the thousands of Kamleshes out there.
The very fact of the existence of so many children like Kamlesh and the reactions of others to his story are both absolutely depressing. We as a society have failed, if there are so many like Kamlesh out there; and if we are busy making and viewing ‘funny’ videos on his life. Why does something like this not jolt us out of our smug complacency? In other words, why are we not horrified enough to do something?
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