It is another cold, hard night for Munni and her four small children at one of the temporary shelters in south Delhi. Dinner is over and now begins the long fight to keep the cold away.
Munni tries hard to put her children to sleep but not inside the makeshift tent. She wraps them up in plastic sheets.
Munni, who works as a rag picker, has very little to ask from her husband who himself has a temporary job with the municipal corporation. Together they earn less than Rs. 1500 a month. A plastic sheet is all they can afford as roof over their heads. And their struggle begins and ends here everyday.
There are over 60 night shelters in Delhi, but for most homeless like Munni, they are not practical.
At the shelters, women and children are separated from the male members of the family which the families find unsafe. Hence, to be together they sleep outside the tents. The shelters also lack the most basic facilities required for a hygienic living.
"There is no electricity. The streetlight is all we get. There is no water we drink water from the drain tap. If it rains we have to somehow manage under the holed plastic sheets," said Habib, Munni's husband.
For the people living in these temporary shelters braving the cold and other climatic miseries is not the only problem. Sometimes they also have to deal with the unruly cops who come for occasional rounds.
"Am using the beddings which we got as donation last year. I've kept the blanket in someone's room, or else the police would have burnt that," said Munni
While the grownups have managed to come to terms with the harsh realities of their life, the little children just don't stop crying as they keep waking up in the night due to the biting cold.
"We can barely sleep in the winters, have to burn the bonfire whole night at times," said Habib.
Then begins another tough day. Habib will soon be out looking for work. Munni will scrounge the streets for anything valuable. They have been living on this pavement for the last six years and like any other homeless anywhere they have no choice but to get used to their condition.
Munni tries hard to put her children to sleep but not inside the makeshift tent. She wraps them up in plastic sheets.
Munni, who works as a rag picker, has very little to ask from her husband who himself has a temporary job with the municipal corporation. Together they earn less than Rs. 1500 a month. A plastic sheet is all they can afford as roof over their heads. And their struggle begins and ends here everyday.
There are over 60 night shelters in Delhi, but for most homeless like Munni, they are not practical.
At the shelters, women and children are separated from the male members of the family which the families find unsafe. Hence, to be together they sleep outside the tents. The shelters also lack the most basic facilities required for a hygienic living.
"There is no electricity. The streetlight is all we get. There is no water we drink water from the drain tap. If it rains we have to somehow manage under the holed plastic sheets," said Habib, Munni's husband.
For the people living in these temporary shelters braving the cold and other climatic miseries is not the only problem. Sometimes they also have to deal with the unruly cops who come for occasional rounds.
"Am using the beddings which we got as donation last year. I've kept the blanket in someone's room, or else the police would have burnt that," said Munni
While the grownups have managed to come to terms with the harsh realities of their life, the little children just don't stop crying as they keep waking up in the night due to the biting cold.
"We can barely sleep in the winters, have to burn the bonfire whole night at times," said Habib.
Then begins another tough day. Habib will soon be out looking for work. Munni will scrounge the streets for anything valuable. They have been living on this pavement for the last six years and like any other homeless anywhere they have no choice but to get used to their condition.
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