Hi this is manisha. I live in shamshan bhumi with my family and work all day in my house, I cook clean, take care of my 2 younger sisters .my life is pretty simple but yet these two girls whom I don’t even know are forcing me to come up with something to talk about, why on earth am I sitting with them, don’t pawan and zubair understand that I am not comfortable with them. These two girls are from completely different world than mine, they are asking me if I have ever been unhappy or scathed and one of them even says that she has been dejected and crestfallen many times, which to me is so hard to believe. but I have no option as I trapped in between these two uptown aliens to speak out, I at least have the comfort that jahana, my best friend ,is sitting though a bit far but in juxtaposition to me, who is also pouring her heart out.

 I don’t like begging, nobody does but still my mother asks me to do it on Saturdays since the people of Delhi still have astounding belief in shani god and would willingly put one rupee coin in my goblet containing mustard oil and a blackened miniature deity of god shani.
Except for Saturdays, rest of my week is spent at home where I transform into a caretaker, but I do get time to watch movies and serials on cable TV. My mother is a nice woman, she doesn’t make any objections to what I do around the house, she doesn’t even send me to beg out on the streets in sweltering summers or chilly winters rather she goes herself. many families live in shamshan bhumi who pay a rent of about rs.1000 per month for a single room home, mostly we all are from Bihar and  we came here in search of employment , my parents did not own any agricultural land like others , we only had a home, which we had to leave behind because there was no earning.

I come to ber sarai to meet my other friend’s everyday; we walk on the pavements, fly kites, talk and play. Besides jahana my other good friends are gulshan and naseema and asha. i usually am content with all that I have and with the treatment I get from my friend and family, i m the only girl in my group whose combs her hair
my biggest fear is to move away from this group, I m scared of any disruptions in our friendship, the world which lies beyond these few years is unknown and thinking about it makes me nervous and apprehensive. except for normal bickering the girls never really fight with each other , they mostly get into a brawl with the boys ,we  all pull each others hair , swear at  each other and give weird facial expressions to express our anger and disgust, the fight never actually goes to the extent of physically hurting anyone.
one of the uptown girls gasped when I told her that our village (madhubani zila in Bihar) is as filthy as Delhi streets are, its true, the munirka and ber sarai streets smell equally noxious as our village streets, the only difference between them is cars and deafening noise of traffic, but for all of us acclimatization was never a problem. i feel safe here when I am with my friends, my father is a  construction worker and he earns enough for all of us ,my two elder brothers also live with us ,they are both married but their wives live in village, we send them money and other necessities am scared of bandits who loot our houses and take away utensils and our hard earned money, but whenever that happens we always get back on our feet and start from the scratch, that is how the world goes around, just when one question is answered , another one pops up.

As told to Vandana