Victoria Station Street Children, Bombay

Victoria Station Street Children, Bombay
Photographs by Benito Pajares

From June 17 to August 29, 2010
Oberta Room - La Nau

From Monday to Saturday, from 10 to 14 and from 16 to 20 h.

Sunday, from 10 to 14 h.

Organised and produced by Universitat de València

With cooperation from Bancaixa

Project by   Benito Pajares, press photographer

Growing up at Victoria Station, Bombay

I visited Bombay or Mumbai, as it is currently called, for the first time in 2004. It was my third trip to India but I hadn't had a chance to go to this city because on the first two visits I headed north, from Jaisalmer —in Rajasthan— to Calcutta, through Nepal and some areas on the Himalayas like Sikkin.

This time I decided to travel part of the country by train, departing precisely from Bombay towards the north and then eastwards to Orissa; then I would head southeast to finally go to the capital before returning to Spain. 

I arrived very early in the morning. After my first night at the hotel I was looking forward to starting my adventure and so I went to Victoria Station to enquire about the timetables. I was struck by the great deal of scruffy-looking children wandering in groups in the surroundings; It didn’t really come as a surprise because in my previous trips in the country I had already seen the same unfortunately too common scene in many places. Still, I was amazed to see the station crowded with street urchins; the situation surpassed any possible references that came to mind, like the thugs of Monipodio’s courtyard or Spain in the early 17^th century. Children were begging near the ticket office or by the cafeteria; some would get off the packed local trains that brought them to town in the hope that they would find some food or a few coins; some were half asleep on benches or on the floor, near the trains that were not in service, where they could go unnoticed. Some were smoking crack or inhaling glue... All this happened right in front of busy passengers coming back and forth, absolutely unbothered by these children’s plight.

What western travellers -the first world voyagers- wouldn’t have felt the urge to do something in front of such a heartbreaking view? I thought that the only thing I could do was to let that terrible reality be known. I was determined to spend a few more days –five or six days- in Mumbai, even if I had to shorten my journey before returning to Spain.

I was not unaware of the difficulties of my project, basically because you are not allowed to take photographs inside the station and because the police were all around. It was going to be difficult for a tourist –camera at the ready- to go unnoticed, and so I decided to stay inside the least time possible and to avoid any situation that could jeopardise my stay or a future visit to the country.

I would prowl around, coming close to some of the groups of children to talk to them so that they would tell me about their lives and, above all, so that they got used to my presence. I spent quite a bit of time with some of them over those days. When I returned later, we even shared the same bench or floor at night. I got an opportunity to return to India in 2009 and spend a week in Mumbai. I made all the preparations and took with me a great deal of photographs in case I saw the same kids, to give them the pictures.

But I wasn’t lucky. I failed to find them. I walked the streets showing passersby the photographs of the children, but almost nobody knew them. Then I remembered a woman who used to sell glue bottles from her shack; I went to see her and showed her the photos. She remembered most of them; the majority had died or disappeared, she said.

In the following days I managed to find two; the oldest one had been sort of lucky, he was making a living as a bootblack near Chargate Station; the other one was still living at the street and he looked much worse than a few years earlier.

Now, the University of València has organised a photography exhibition with all the pictures that I took at Vitoria station and its surroundings. The exhibition has helped me think that somehow all my time and effort were worthwhile and that the reasons that prompted me to tell this story, namely to raise awareness, do make sense. I am aware, though, that little can be done for the children I portrayed or for those who must be wandering around now in the thousands of Victoria stations in the world. But maybe a small portion of society will become aware and do something to report the situation and demand a better life for millions of unsheltered human beings like those at Victoria Station whose present is simply equivalent to poverty, with identical prospects for the near future.

Benito Pajares

www.benitopajares.com