Young dreams from the pavement

Take the 7-year-old boy who grew up amidst hooch sellers and drug pushers at a railway siding who wants to be a police officer when he grows up so that he can one day get rid of the scum of society.

His 12-year-old sister wants to be a dancer and is taught Odissi by no less than Dona Ganguly (wife of former Indian Cricketer Sourav Ganguly) at her school.

The little girl now finds the crude language on the pavement laced with expletives shocking to her young ears.

She says she forcefully tells neighbours on the pavement that use rough language at the drop of a hat.

"I will be an educated girl someday and a dancer like Dona Mam who teaches me," says Priyanka, among the handful of children from the pavement under Durgapur rail bridge at New Alipore, that NGO M S Welfare Society works with to provide a better life.

"I try telling people I live with on the pavement that I have seen something of a better life too, which I will also introduce them to, when I grow up as an educated girl and a dancer with the help of these kind mams," Priyanka said yesterday at the NGO's office on the occasion of Iswarchandra Vidyasagar's 192nd birth anniversary (26 September,1820) when a walk was organised with them.

Her 7-year-old brother shyly says that he studies under the light of street lamps, something Iswarchandra did too. (MORE)