Nalini clears the banana leaves she uses as plates from the concrete floor where the children eat and sleep. Moving about the room with ease and efficiency, she wipes up the few kernals of rice that Annuradha and Neiswan and the younger children have scattered . Neiswan and Annuradha are two mentally handicapped teenage girls that Nalini has adopted � Nalini has adopted a total of fourteen children. Nalini gently cleans the childrens hands and faces, offers the baby a bottle of milk, then passes their care to her sister Jayaseeli for the moment. It is mid morning, and Nalini has already put in six hour day.
Nalini grabs her satchel, shuffles across the cement floor and rushes out the door. Hordes of Motorcycle-taxis rush by, clouds of noxious black smoke fills her eyes and lungs. She zigzags across the street, dodging cars, claptrap busses, auto-rickshaws, motorcycles and bicycles as they all fight for space in the raging current of traffic. On the other side of the street, dozens of men dressed in nothing more than tattered loin clothes and saris sit in the road breaking up the section of concrete road under repair with only a chisel and hammer. The laborers are ghastly thin, mostly sinew and skin. Protein is a luxury. Three cows eat the refuse that line the streets of Madras; banana peels newspaper and plastic bags. Some how the cows in India seem to find nourishment in discarded newspaper and cardboard.
Nalini rushes from tailor shop to a food stall and on to one business after another pleading with the owners to donate rice, beans, or a few rupees so that she can feed her orphans tonight and tomorrow. Daily, Nalini must canvas businesses for her immediate needs. Last week the bank officers came to reposes her home, but she stalwartly held them off for one more week. Last year Nalini was forced to mortgage her small home and for ten months she has not been able to make the interest payments. Nalini receives no outside help from other agencies. All of the orphanage's expenses must be raised by Nalini. She must squeeze money from tiny shop owners whose families also eke out an existence well below the western poverty line. |
