[I wrote the following report in July 2002 when a group of us -including some present-day Kafila writers – worked in a riot relief camp in Vatwa, Ahmedabad. Before Gujarat, and this report, I was an unhappy student of Chemistry in Delhi University, un-sure of what i wanted to do post-graduation. I’m not saying that I chose to become a journalist specifically after the Gujarat riots; but this was the first long report I had ever written, and revealed to me the possibilities of journalism – not as a tool of communication and dissemination, but as a means to make the world intelligible to one’s self. Gujarat in 2002 did something to you that could not pin-point, but having left you knew that something profound had changed. Re-reading it (before posting), I found myself ( as a journalist) a little embarrassed by some of the conclusions I drew, some of the sentences I constructed, and some of the grammar I bridged. But I have resisted the urge to correct it beyond a spell-check.]

6^th July 2002

When I arrive in Ahmendabad, 3 months have passed since the grisly horror of Febuary, but the scars are still there for all to see. All except for the State Government i.e., which continues to turn a blind eye to the plight of the victims. The people of Gujarat are a study in numbness, a numbness which hangs heavy in the air, and affects all who touch it, including myself. After a point, the sight of burnt buildings and broken localities no longer produce a feeling of outrage and horror, and instead I lapse into a mood of hollow despair.

I am to work in the Kudle Alam Dargarh Camp, in the Vatwa district. The camp is small by ahmedabad standards- 294 families, or about 2000 people, living in the Dargah compound under two large shamianas. Here too, the numbness seems to have done its work. Blank, some times suspiciuos stares greet as as we walk through the camp towards the Camp office. Beena(our coordinator) introduces us to Ishaq bhai, Javed Bhai, Arif Bhai and a host of others who head the administration at the Camp We introduce our selves as a group of teachers and students from Delhi. Nivideta, our de facto group leader, stresses our eagerness to help out in anyway possible. We are informed that there is no shortage of things to do, it’s up to us to find them. The administrators seem interested and gradually the ice is broken. Soon enough we are accepted and incorporated as fellow workers.

Accompanied by Aashiq Bhai, we enter Navapura- the locality were most of the camp families come from. As I listen to aashiq bhai describe what happened, I can feel the familiar numbness creeping over me. Silently I observe the rows of burnt houses, and listen as Aashiq bhai tells us the story behind each shell – the shell in which the owner lost his house to the fire and his left hand to the fury of the mob, the shell in which the wedding presents of the bride were reduced to ashes, the shell in which an explosive was used to turn the walls to dust.

7^th

Today is our first day at work. We have decided to concentrate our energies on a few issues – Setting up Rain shelters for the women and children, starting a school for children above the age of 6, acquiring functioning toilets, and creating a database on the government compensation offered to the victims of the riot. We have been informed by both, Beena and the camp organisers, that the issue of compensation is a most pressing one. It seems that on arriving at the camp, the riot affected persons were asked to fill out a government form to ascertain the extent of their loss to their property and kin. On the basis of these forms, surveys of the housing sites were conducted by the government and compensation offered. A compensation ceiling of Rs. 50,000 per house was set, but it seems no one got the full amount. No one got even close to the full amount. Cheques of Rs. 700, 1500, 5000 arrived in the mail, and the last hope that the survivors had was also trampled upon.

The idea is to come up with a questionaire along with a group from Delhi called Saheli, which systematically documents the losses suffered by the victims of the riot.

As I walk through the camp I am aware that someone is following me. I turn and my eyes meet those of Irfan. Irfan is a cheeky boy of 13 with a dazzling smile, which he employs with great effect. He has a small entourage of his own – Yasin, Latif, Altaf and many smaller kids. I sit down on the ground and strike up a conversation with him. He is from Navapura and arrived with the first batch of camp residents. He always has a capital R inscribed on his left wrist. I must ask him what it stands for. As I talk with the kids , someone hands me a notebook and pencil. I leaf through the notebook asking them their alphabet, numbers and spelling until I come across a sketch of “ShaktiMaan.”

Yasin looks down shyly as I complement the unknown artist. According to the kids, Yasin is a talented “painter” and can draw many things including cars, cycles, peacocks and the rest. I ask a small child named Salim to draw a peacock. He sets about his task jealously shielding the pen and paper from his companions. The group grows larger and larger and I notice two small girls standing on the edge of the crowd. As my eyes meet theirs, they turn and run off giggling. Suddenly Irfan notices my fashionably ripped jeans. For an instant he is shocked.

“Aman bhai aapko goli kissne mari?”

I look up amazed.

“kisi ne nahi mari Irfan.”

But he is insistent.

I tell him they tore in an accident. He accepts my explanation but seems unsatisfied by it.

I play with the kids for an hour more and its time to leave. I wave “bye bye” to my new friends and am gone in a cloud of smoke.

8^th

The rain shelters, which were to arrive yesterday, have yet to arrive. I sit in the office feeling useless. I want something to do. Something that involves sweating it out in the sun, carrying heavy things too and fro, and cleaning out vast tracts of land. Nivi decides to start work on the school. She rounds up a group of eager young women form the camp and shares her idea with them. The response is enthusiastic. Soon, the women are busy creating a list of children in the camp along with their respective ages. I decide to find out about the toilets. Ishaq bhai tells me that prefabricated toilets were supplied by Unicef through Citizens initiative, but the AMC truck took them away. He shows me the invoice for the toilets. The invoice has spelt “Kudle Alam Dargah” as “Katle Alam Dargah.” Life, it seems, isn’t without a cruel sense of irony. I get on the phone and try and trace the toilets down.

In the afternoon I meet up with Irfan , Latif and Yasin. Suddenly a little girl walks up to me. I recognize her as the one of the two shy girls of yesterday. She shows me her copy where she has sketched a beautiful peacock. I ask her if she has ever seen one in real life. She doesn’t reply and instead runs off giggling. Irfan says he has seen a real live peacock near his house in Navapura.

Before I leave I try to give Yasin a blank sheet of paper to practice his sketches, but it is snatched away by a smaller child. Immediately I am mobbed by a group of children, all eager for a blank sheet. I promise to return with paper tomorrow. The bye bye idea seems to have caught on and a whole crowd of children follow us to our auto rickshaws to see us off.

I feel like the Piper of Hamlet.

9^th

The tents still haven’t arrived. Dilip has gotten in touch with Action Aid, they promise to send the tents by tommorrow. It seems that the prefabricated toilets require a proper drainage facility which the Dargah Camp doesn’t have. I talk to Ishaq bhai about the drainage. He says the trustees of the Dargah will have to contacted as the area around the Dargah is a place of worship and placing toilets there might not be allowed. I ask him to do his best.

Irfan and I walk around the camp looking for a suitable location for the toilets. Fitting them outside the camp may just be a pointless exercise as no one might use them. On my way back I want to look at the existing toilets, but Irfan is hesitant. He seems embarrassed by the condition they are in. “Aman bhai, wahain mut jao, gunda hai.” I tell Irfan I have to see them for entirely professional reasons. Grudgingly he takes me to the toilets.

The toilets are a complete mess. I strike, what I think, is an entirely professional pose, and calmly peer into cubicles and examine the drains. Irfan laughs at my obvious discomfort. I am extremely fond of this kid.

Ishaaq bhai and I decide that until the drainage facilities are sorted out, the toilets shall be hosed with water twice a day and possibly cleaned out with disinfectant.

A group member , Shambhavi, has noticed a stinking cess pool has appeared under the tap where the camp residents get their water. There is no drain linking it to the main sewer line. It is proposed that we dig a shallow trench and line it with bricks. I eagerly grab a spade and get to work. My dream of sweating it out in the sun is finally coming true. The drain is dug and lined with bricks. I ask my small army of boys (lashkar e aman as Dilip calls them) to get us the bricks from a rubble heap at the other end of the camp. Yasin is fascinated by the entire exercise and tirelessly runs from one end of the camp to the other, his arms piled high with “brings’ as he is so fond of calling them. Any attempt to convince him that they are “bricks” falls on deaf ears. Latif works silently and gets us more bricks than any one else.

Irfan, Yasin, Latif and a bunch of little kids drag me off to this kindly neighbour’s house. The idea is to indulge in a spot of cricket. Sick of cleaning smelly drains I agree. Yasin is eager to learn english. I teach him a few words along with the universally applicable sentence “My name is Yasin.”

Today at bye bye I notice something strange. Dilip has taught the kids a wacky handshake and they are busy high fiving each other. This thing has all the symptoms of an epidemic. After high fiving fifty children at least five times each, I escape to my auto nursing my aching palms.

10^th

One of my Lashkar e Aman has started working in the Dhaba outside the Dargah. His name is Saddam. I ask him why and he simply smiles a heart-breaking smile. I speak to the Dhaba owner and he tells me that Saddam works twelve hours a day for 15 rupees and meals. I ask the owner if Saddam can take an hour off everyday to go to school. He agrees. Saddam, however, seems less than enthused by the news. I ruffle his hair and walk into the camp.

Nivi’s School seems to have picked up well. After the first day of chaos, there seems to be a method to their madness. The children happily sit for hours on end, oblivious to the oppressive heat.

The tent wallahs have finally arrived. They ask us to remove the existing structure and promise to return by five in the evening to set up the new tent. We toil all afternoon, busily cutting ropes and dissembling the existing bamboo structure. I enjoy myself immensely.

My days at the Dargah seem to have fallen into a sort of routine. I spend the mornings filling out compensation forms, the afternoons helping with any physical work that might be required and the evenings with Irfan and his group. I am now attempting to teach them multiplication. They seem to enjoy it. Latif is very quick to understand, Yasin is eager to learn but takes while to understand. Irfan is rather blaze’ about the whole thing.

What is really frustrating is the fact that they have been taught a certain amount of math without going into the “all-important basics”. They thus have an intuitive idea of how to arrive at an answer but have no idea how they got there. Yasin paradoxically is better at mental math than at written problems. After hours of maths lessons, I am often left wondering if they have understood anything at all.

11^th

The tent wallahs have not returned to put up the tarpulin. Ishaaq bhai tells me that the camp residents are finding life difficult without the tent. I assure him the best I can, but am secretly worried. If the tarpulin is not fixed by tommorrow I shall have a serious problem on my hands.

Today Yasin seems low. He has even stopped saying “hi my name is yasin” and any attempt to cheer him up him only makes him more withdrawn. I ask him what the problem is, he gives me a big smile and slips away. Irfan tells me he has a step mother who doesn’t treat him well. I listen in silence.

Yasin’s mood has improved. He is even answering my inquisitive “how are you” with “My name is Yasin, I am fine.” Thrilled I attempt to teach them the commutative law of multiplication. I never thought teaching could be so satisfying. I now look forward to meeting these three children everyday, and genuinely enjoy their company. I spend half an hour fooling around with the little children and then spend most of the evening with the three of them.

The little children are greatly amused by the fact that my ripped jeans are balanced on my hips and stand a real chance of falling off when tugged at. They then proceed to do the same. I fend them off, laughing at first, but as their attempts grow more and more savage and persistent, I grow more and more flustered. Breaking point is reached when a kid successfully attempts to bite me. I am now angry. A helpful parent from the camp yells at the kids and coerces them into sitting down. Where upon I give them a long lecture on ethics and morality. Now feeling utterly foolish I stalk off to my last refuge- the administration office.

Irfan tells me to put the kids in their place and volunteers to do the same if I don’t have the stomach for it. I turn down his kindly offer as politely as I can.

Today the organisers have insisted on feeding us a meal and so dinner is decided upon. Accordingly at 1830 we all troop into the neighbouring house of ……….. the ………..

The food is simple yet tasty. Nivi and I go crazy over the loki ka halwa. The two of us also go crazy over the mirror in the living room. It is our first mirror in five days.

12^th

My second last day in camp I prepare the children for the fact that I shall be leaving the day after. They seem sad and despondent. I cheer them up by giving them some math problems to solve. Today I immerse myself in compensation work. The work to be done is huge and we haven’t even completed a fraction of it. I enjoy it at first as I get to meet people and speak with them, but soon enough the novelty wears off. The people place great faith in our forms. Trusting them to bring back all they have lost. I constantly tell people that these forms are no guarantee of anything. I hate deflating their faint bubbles of hope, but its more humane than false hope.

I realise that having children follow you every time you step out of the office is a flattering if somewhat exhausting exercise. I cannot take any pictures for fear of having to then take pictures of every single living soul in the camp.

The boys invite me to a game of cricket. As they hand me the bat I can sense that I am being tested. I grip the bat in my sweating palms and pray that I don’t get out on the first ball. Yasin starts his run up and flings the ball at me. I whack him for two consecutive fours. The children cheer. I have passed the test.

Today an old man asks me my religion for the first time. Afraid, embarrassed and unsure I lie and tell him that my mother is Muslim and my father Hindu. I profess that I am of no faith. He seems satisfied.

13^th

The day starts with compensation once more. Anupam, a group member, has given us a few trees to plant in the dargah. We dig 1-foot deep holes in the sweltering sun. I realise that I’m happiest when I’m hot and sweaty.

As I sit among a crowd of children; Kallu, who overheard my conversation yesterday, quietly asks me which religion I belong to. Determined not to make the same mistake as yesterday, I admit that I am a Hindu. The children are shocked, and say that I simply can’t be one. I insist that I am. They ask me where my family is from, and when I tell them that I’m originally from the North West Frontier Province, they crow with triumph. “So you could quite easily have been a Muslim!” They say. I leave that claim uncontested. “Its very easy to become one, “ they continue, “Just start reading the Namaz!”

I take Yasin, Irfan, Latif and Altaf out for ice cream. Hesitant at first, they are soon tucking into their Amul ice cream cups.

The three of them had taken my phone number down a few days ago and now they seem to have memorised it. They tell me they shall call me once in Delhi. Irfan tells me that once he has saved enough money he shall come to Delhi and personally buy me a pair of trousers so that I don’t have to walk around in my ripped jeans. Latif some how manages to get me the phone number of his neighbour and we fix up a time when I shall call them, once I am in Delhi.

It is now time for me to leave and I take photographs of as many people as my film roll will permit. I promise to send them a few once they are developed.

I bid farewell to my Laskhar-e-Aman and a special farewell to Irfan, Yasin and Latif. I promise to call them the following Monday. I look back at the dargah camp and silently mouth a prayer for all those in it.

Yasin comes over and holds my hand. “bye bye.” he says, “No meeting Tommorrow.”

Bye Bye Yasin. I shall never forget you.

*