Beggar stories, Diary notes II - Chintal The Beggar, The family Man

     
Twenty-two years old Chintal Suresh does not remember when he started begging . When he was a kid, he used to sit on the roadside in Nalgonda district town along with his father, who was a beggar suffering from leprosy. His mother had also health problem, she was also suffering from some chronic disease. The principal activities of his parents were begging. That was their livelihood.

When chintal was six years old, somebody got him admitted in the government primary school. He studied up to IV class, when he was in Vth class, he stopped going to school. When asked, why did he stop going to school? , he replied that he liked the school but did not like the school environment and schoolmates. He did not have any friend in the school and teachers used to beat him if he did not complete the homework. As there was no one in his family who could help him out in study, he dropped studying. After the school, few years again he begged on the street with his parents. Despite of the fact that he was begging since childhood, he did not like begging. He wanted to do some other activities to earn a living. One day he approached to a wall painter who was living nearby and requested him to teach painting so that he could quit begging. He learnt the skills of wall painting from the painter and started working with him. He was earning well and according to his opinion, his life was on right track.

Chintal sharing his story

His happy days were short- lived. Five years ago, he met with an accident. In the night, he was coming from the work , a speeding car run over him. In the accident, he lost his left leg below the knee. He was operated in government hospital and discharged from there when he recovered fully from the injury. His physical disability forced him again to do begging activities .Meanwhile he met with a beggar girl and fall in love with her. Both of them decided to live together in Hyderabad. They left Nalgonda and came here for begging purpose as well as search of any employment opportunity. As they did not get any work, they started begging in Ramkrishna mission area, RTC cross road area. In last five years, he became the father of two children, one boy and one girl. The names of the children are S. Babu and Bujji . All of them are living on roadside, on pavement and their livelihood is nothing but begging.

Chintal with his family

Every month his family earns around 6000-7000 rupees. He does not get any benefits of government run social security and welfare schemes. He has only adhar card as any government documents. He does not have any land or any immovable property. In the name of property, he has few bags, eatable items and one tricycle. He has not purchased that tricycle. It belonged to one old handicapped beggar who died recently. After his death, he acquired his tricycle and other articles. He feels that his comfort and mobility increased because of the tricycle but earning is same as what he used to get earlier.

His aspiration is to raise children in dignified manner and look after family properly. He is concerned about his wife’s safety and wants to be with her all the time. He would like to take up that kind of any job, which would allow him to be his wife all the time. Unfortunately, he has not received such offer so far from any quarter.

~~~ Ramanuj Dubey