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| Sunday, 26 September 2004 |
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Living on the fringe Mounting debts force her onto the streets by Umangi de Mel She sits in a corner of the pavement holding a stack of lottery tickets in one hand and a baby in the other. "I travel from Mutwal with the baby everyday. It kills me to take a seven months old infant to the street but I'm left with no other choice. I have to take him wherever I go," says, thirty-year-old Rushika Jeewani Bandaranaike, mother of three kids and a wife who does whatever it takes to keep them going... According to Rushika selling lottery tickets from morning till night isn't an easy task, especially because of the men. "They think women are mere play things. I don't think they realise they too have sisters, daughters or wives when they make suggestive remarks to helpless women like us," she laments, explaining how difficult it is for a woman to survive on the streets. Rushika has been selling lottery tickets ever since she lost her job. She had worked at a company in Mattakuliya as a packaging assistant, but the company had closed last year. "I was at home for two months and the financial situation got worse," she says. Rushika was supporting her family at the time she worked at the company and was pregnant with her third child when she lost her job. After giving birth, she took to the streets with a 2-month old baby, as she couldn't find another job, and she couldn't afford to watch a growing family starve. Poverty stricken Rushika sells lottery tickets at the Fort railway station and in the nearby streets. She says a kind lady from Bambalapitiya, had given her husband who was doing odd jobs, a proper job at a company in Hettiyawatte. "We're indebted to many people. My husband gives me his whole salary, which goes to pay our debts. I have an elder sister who stays with me and she also comes to Fort, to sell lottery tickets with her baby," she says. Having two small kids aged ten and twelve, who are schooling, Rushika says life is one big trial for them. Forced to go into the streets owing to mounting debts, Rushika says, whatever she earns is used to settle debts occurred when she stayed at home, and her husband's earnings wasn't enough to make ends meet. Constantly accosted by men with lurid suggestions she says it's sickening the way they try to lure a mother who's holding an infant, "They don't really care...I feel so ashamed to be seen like this, especially having to expose the little one to unwanted things but this is my fate..." she sighs while trying to keep the child still. Rushika whose husband had been an alcoholic at one stage insists he is a good person. "He has reduced his drinking because he has realised how hard it is to survive with a small salary and many debts on the shoulder." Talking about the good old days, Rushika says that they lived a peaceful life, till she lost her job. Having had enough on her plate since then, she says that she didn't have a single item of clothing for the baby when he was born. "We became very poor, but thanks to the lord, many generous ladies have given clothes, milk powder and food for the baby," says a grateful Rushika. Plying the streets with her lottery tickets Rushika earns about Rs. 200 a day and if the lottery tickets are left, she goes to the railway station to sell them in the train. "I walk around in the Fort market where I start my business in the morning." Her biggest problem is the endless debts, that costs her every single cent she earns. Rushika determined to pull through the bad times, says she doesn't need money but a job to support her family and pay the debts. "I owe people about fifty-thousand rupees. I don't mind if I have to stay up the whole night to earn a living. To tell you the truth, I can't sleep well when I think of the amount of money that I owe people." She has been making conjee for a while, but it was something she couldn't continue as it required a whole heap of extra work and sleepless nights. "I would fall asleep in the bus and was way too tired to look after the small one which is why I gave it up." Rushika starts feeding the baby who's too small to be in the streets. "All that I want is a job. I need to look after my kids, give them a good education and build a 'home' for them where they'll get what I had when I was a kid and not let them ever come to the street." |
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