A random look at one of the camp entrances.
A feeling of desperation, abandonment and helplessness which even KP residential walls and roofs don't fail to convey.
A KP residential unit/cell where it is hard to distinguish the kitchen from the living room or the sleeping space for a family.
A destitute and torn down look of KP camp residential units where our KP families live a life of hell while the rest of world doesn't seem to care.
A motherly KP woman conveying her pain and desperation while her bedridden husband is lying on bed (on her right) unable to afford adequate medical care. Ailing husband's frequent cries of body pain and aches often interrupted our conversation and the woman found it hard to hold off tears.
Having lost his livelihood due to health problems and physical handicap, this KP camp resident (seen wearing a violet jacket) hasn't given up. To make a living, he grows vegetables and has opened a vegetable vending shop within the camp itself. Introducing this gentleman to me are volunteers of Uddhar organization, which comprises a handful of local Jammu KP volunteers who visit camps on a regular basis and extend whatever little they can help using their own pocket money.
Some KP camp residents who help out their more desperate neighbors despite having to endure their own problems and despair.
A somewhat shy and reluctant KP mother finding it unbearable to ask for help while finding herself in a helpless situation.
This KP woman's daughter has accidentally been hit hard in her eye while she was a toddler. Unable to get proper medical care, the little girl lost her eye. An eye surgery or replacement at PGI Chandigarh costs about 20-25 thousand rupees, far beyond the means of this family. With dignity and poise, this KP woman tries to conceal her pain yet helplessly pleads to help restore eyesight to her child, who is incidentally one of the brightest kids in her school.
Words fail to convey the pain, anguish and living conditions of camp residents.
A single, abandoned KP mother struggles to put her toddler daughter to sleep in her residential unit/cell, which heats up like an oven in summer months.
While there are many skeptics and critics out there, I felt proud about KP culture when this fatherly KP gentleman (sitting on the left wearing feran) despite being dirt poor himself with a large family, refused to accept any financial aid, and passionately pleaded that his share of any aid be given to one of the other camp residents who he felt deserved it better due to more desperate living conditions. Three more KP families identified their neighbors as more deserving victims and pleaded that their share of monetary aid be directed to said neighbors.
Two small kids we found unprotected and alone in a camp home helping each other while their mother is away working, besides being children of a father who is known to have lost mental balance (probably schizophrenic) and who wanders aimlessly for days away from home.
Same kids explain how they go to school and then eat and sleep by themselves while their mother is away working.
A young girl from KP camp (with a diabetic/kidney patient father on her left) who aspires to be a computer application specialist describes in detail the problems of young boys and girls from the camps who study hard but cannot afford to go to any professional college because their parents are struggling to even feed their families. Like a worm in a cocoon, they feel they can't leave the camps and instead settle for petty jobs in and around the camps despite being filled with so much potential.
Same KP girl struggling to compose herself while talking about problems facing young girl students. Since the Misherawala camp is located far away from the main Jammu city, KP camp students have to travel miles away at odd hours to attend coaching classes. Unable to afford autorickshaws, the students end up traveling using 'rough transportation' at odd hours and girl students end up facing embarrassing encounters with drunk labor class passengers. Her disease-plagued father's look (sitting on her left) of helplessness conveyed volumes of emotion.
Despite being born and brought up amidst unimaginable conditions at these KP camps, young boys and girls are trying their best to find a way out, attempting to educate themselves while holding on to the bare hope that they might find a ticket out of this living hell. An unspoken question that resounded in my mind – “Are we doing our best to help our desperate, disease and despair-stricken KP brethren on a consistent basis?” My own answer came quick – “Most certainly not”
