Khushboo's easy chemistry with the children is a result of her empathy and perseverance. But until April, last year, life on the platform was more a subject of academic interest to her. She was researching on the causes that make children run away from home. But on April 4, 2011 an accident at the station completely changed her approach to the subject.
That day: "A boy, Petu, barely 10 years old, was ripped to death under a moving train. He used to make a living collecting bottles and other waste from the platform. He was looking for saleable rags when he came under a train and died. His cut-up body lay beside the tracks but help was nowhere in sight. We called for help but the police took their time to come. It was painful to watch life go on as usual with passengers boarding trains and the authorities taking their own time to take charge. Kites swirled over the body. It was a moment that left me totally shocked," she says, pointing to the tracks where children like Petu are picking saleable waste.
"This incident brought home the realization that while on paper systems exist, there is no consolidated mechanism to respond to the immediate needs of protection and care that a child requires to survive on the platform."
Anger over Petu's death brought out the activist in Khushboo. She went to the high court in August this year, to file a public interest litigation (PIL) citing all her experiences on railway platforms and Petu's ordeal, to demand a system that cares for children in distress and assists them 24x7 without procedural wrangles.
"The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights has a set of guidelines for railway children. The PIL demands that these be implemented," Jain said. Besides the railway station, where she is working to consolidate a child protection system along with various NGOs, Khushboo regularly visits the Delhi high court now. The hearings on her PIL are turning out to be a learning experience.
Helping the railway children has become her life's goal but Khushboo says she never imagined taking this path. Born in an affluent but conservative family, she spent her formative years in Nepal before finishing school in Hisar, Haryana, where she faced an orthodox social framework.
"The social message was clear that girls must marry and settle down early, bear children and take care of the house. But I was clear that I wanted to study," Khushboo says, contrasting her childhood in Nepal with her later years in Haryana. She chose to have her way without rebelling. She graduated in commerce before complying with her family's demand to marry, in 2004. "But I never lost sight of my dream to carry on with studies." She eventually did her post-graduation and enrolled for an MPhil programme in Delhi School of Economics.
For Khushboo, education was never a route to a career and activism was not on her mind till 2009, when she first witnessed street life in the Walled City as a volunteer with an NGO. "I saw children come to the NGO's day care centre and wondered why they had run away from home. Everybody blamed poverty but I felt there was more to it." That's when she decided to research the "rite of running away".
Khushboo's search for an answer has taken her to many railway stations in the last one year. She now believes that a runaway child is not merely a product of poverty. Children are trafficked for work, run away for fear of beatings by parents and teachers, and also follow other children and adults as migrants in search of work. "There are many emotional issues that make a child a runaway child and this is what I want to understand and make others understand, too," she says before disappearing in the crowd. She has the same urgency in her step as the other passengers, but her goal is different.
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