If you’re even a little interested in the explosion of gypsy beggars across Europe, and particularly in Sweden, you must see this documentary. It’s Bulgarian with English subtitles, in three parts.
Gypsy Beggars in Sweden
“Bulgarian TV host Mirolyuba Benatova interviews bulgarian gypsy beggars in Sweden and asks questions about their income and the criminal aspects of it.”
If you watch the documentary, please tell me in the comments below: Did it change your mind in any way? Did it confirm something you suspected? How was it enlightening?
A political message about beggars in Stockholm’s Östermalmstorg subway station.
Stockholm beggars, still clogging streets, store entrances, and subway entrances throughout the city, reflect a problem all of Sweden is experiencing. The beggars come primarily from Romania and employ such identical passive approaches that it’s hard to believe they aren’t shown, by some phantom figure (boss), exactly what they are to do.
Stockholm beggars
I wrote extensively about beggars in Stockholm a year ago, describing links between these beggars and organized crime syndicates in Romania. I then traveled to Romania to further research organized crime and human trafficking of beggars (and pickpockets). The comments posted to these articles, and others, reveal the divisive split among Swedes who, as a friend of mine quips, are either beggar-huggers or xenophobes.
Thus, the stage is set for a polarizing political agenda, which the Sweden Democrat Party has just taken to a new venue: the Stockholm subway system. There, bold text in English begins:
“Sorry about the mess here in Sweden. We have a serious problem with forced begging. International gangs profit from people’s desperation. Goverment [sic] won’t do what’s needed. But we will!”
The party has taken this anti-begging platform to the subway platform where, ironically, one is likely to have just witnessed the very subject of the platform immediately before coming face to typeface with its blatant message. One must step around at least one sprawling beggar at virtually every subway door.
Why is this audacious political message in English? Why is it in the subway at all? Well, the public transport system can’t discriminate among advertisers, so it can’t stop the ad campaign. And though the ad pretends to inform foreign visitors, it is obviously speaking to Swedish voters (who practically all speak English).
If you visited Sweden four or more years ago, you doubtless remember the pristine condition of public and private spaces. One can’t help but notice the stark difference today. Beggars languish here and there on pavements made filthy with dark stains. Stuffed black trash bags are piled near each beggar, sometimes in baby strollers or shopping carts. Laundry is spread on the ground around some beggars, along with beverage cups, food packets, and blankets. The areas they squat look like mini-slums.
The message in the subway specifically targets forced begging, which is the heart of the controversy in Sweden. Are these beggars organized and trafficked by crime bosses? Or are they desperately poor, unable to get help in their home countries, and seeking a better life in a rich nation full of possibilities? Or are they seeking a lifetime of handouts with no intention to immerse themselves in a new culture, learn the language, seek gainful employment?
The beggar-huggers must believe that all these East European beggars—all several thousand of them—came as sole and separate individuals; and that each is uneducated, each unable to work—yet each has organized herself (most of these beggars are women), traveled herself, found her own begging place and sleeping place, her own laminated family photo to display… It’s impossible to imagine these passive women, who at most now whimper “hej-hej” (hello) to passersby, mustering the gumption to attempt such an international endeavor.
The xenophobes blame immigrants for the mess. Others cry racial foul. But the hatred isn’t for an ethnic group—it’s for a work ethic. Begging has been a rare phenomenon in Sweden, therefore arousing real sympathy. Altruistic Swedes readily opened their purses. Now, with a beggar on every corner and ubiquitous rumblings of organization by crime syndicates, Swedes are uncertain, confused, afraid to trust their innate generosity, and afraid of what others will think of them if they don’t.
I recently wrote about beggars on the streets of Stockholm. I observed that an abundance of beggars are now stationed in the streets, and that they are mostly from Romania. I argued that these beggars are organized, and possibly trafficked, that a large portion of collected money goes to “bosses,” and that Swedes are naive and therefore an easy market for the begging enterprise, which is in large part social engineering. The article became quite controversial, especially in Sweden.
Roma beggars in Stockholm take a breakA street in Constanta, RomaniaA street in Constanta, RomaniaA street in Constanta, RomaniaGypsy family in RomaniaA gypsy woman, mother of five children, who collects plastic bottles for a living.A little girl’s rough living.A gypsy woman, mother of five children, who collects plastic bottles for a living.Constanta, Romania skyline
Now, after making a trip to Romania, I have some follow-up information. (But you have to read through my rant before you get it.)
Romanian beggars in Sweden
Swedes are reluctant to believe that their cities and towns have been besieged by professional beggars. Despite the thousands of Romanian beggars in evidence, Swedes stubbornly insist that these are simply individual unfortunate humans who can survive by no other means. For some reason, Swedes excuse them from working for a living. Despite the fact that the Romanian beggars (individually!) all use the exact same posture, the same dress mode, the same plastic bundles of personal effects, the same blanket-wrap and paper cup and laminated photo—even the exact same laminated photo of the very same children. Despite the fact that prime “locations” seem to be continuously occupied, with methodical rotations of personnel so that the position is never vacant, never vulnerable to being usurped by a competitor. Despite the fact that these locations follow a scheme favoring the doors of particular grocery and liquor stores and subway entrances, all over Stockholm and all over Sweden.
Really. Are these Romanian beggars—all the several thousands of them—each sole and separate individuals, each uneducated, each unable to work, each self-organized?
Is Sweden a country of ostriches with their heads buried in the sand? Not quite. Sweden holds a native population intensely dependent on social proof. Everyone is terrified of committing inappropriate behavior, voicing an unpopular belief, not conforming to the group mentality. Everyone’s afraid of appearing to lack compassion, sympathy, charity, and brotherly love. Everyone’s afraid of appearing racist.
For an excellent example of this attitude, take a look at an August 28, 2014 article in Metro, the free paper distributed on Swedish trains. “No, the beggars are not controlled by criminal gangs,” is a translation of the Swedish headline. Its main source of intelligence is a Swedish “homelessness coordinator.” I don’t know, but I would suspect that Romanians who occupy Sweden for the purpose of begging do not go to the state for housing. That’s why they have bosses! To organize them, find them places to sleep. Also note that they carry their possessions around with them in sacks, like old-fashioned hobos.
Other sources in the article tiptoe through their interviews, cautiously hedging with evasive statements like this police officer’s: “‘It is very difficult to say that begging is organized,’ says Stockholm Police Peter Enell.” The article also makes short shrift of the statements by “a police officer with roots in Romania.” To me, the Metro article is laughable. Have a look. Or don’t waste your time.
To find out more about Romanian beggars, Bob Arno and I went investigating in Romania.
We met with a highly experienced police officer and another official in the city of Constanta, neither of whom would like to be named. Both told us that Romanians who beg outside of Romania are definitely organized. (I did not ask about beggars inside Romania.)
I asked if poor villagers sought out begging gang-leaders for assistance, or if villagers were recruited by the gangsters. They are recruited, I was assured. They are desperately poor, and they are Roma. On their own, they could not afford foreign travel. They require the assistance of leaders (bosses, aka gangsters) who organize their transportation. Of course, these bosses must be repaid.
The official pointed out a number of Roma men drinking on the sidewalks. They are robbers, he said.
The police officer said that people are still maimed for the purpose of begging. I did not get clarification, but I take this to mean that it is children who are maimed. The officer described a horrendous practice, in which adults push a child into slow-moving traffic. When the child is hit and injured, the adults demand cash on the spot from the driver in order to not involve the police.
It’s hard to believe that this barbaric savagery really happens. Yet, the officer told us that this exact atrocity had occurred only two days before our meeting, right in the center of town, in front of Tomis Mall (near where we found our pickpockets the next day). I can’t get the nightmarish image out of my head.
I must presume that the adults were not the parents of the child victim. Who is the child, then? Stolen? Purchased? Rented? I also presume that the child, with its unpredictable injuries, is intended to become a compelling beggar who will attract sympathy and more cash with its twisted limbs and scarred skin.
This anachronism is difficult to grasp in modern, civilized society. It’s impossible to imagine the desperation and cold-bloodedness that leads to such an industry.
(It brings to mind the 1989 novel Geek Love, by Katherine Dunn, in which a circus family man concocts chemical cocktails for his pregnant wife, thereby creating his own deformed children for his own lucrative freak show. However, those children are loved. Great book!)
Roma in Romania
Bob and I spoke with a gypsy family that happened to walk past us in Constanta, Romania. Our translator begged us not to, insisting that it would bring trouble and they’d demand money. He said they wouldn’t speak much Romanian and he didn’t speak any Romany. Bob persisted, and the family sat down in a nearby park, amenable and unperturbed.
They were clearly penniless. The mother’s clothes were black with muck and she carried a grubby blanket. The children, eight and eleven years old, were bright and alert. They answered Bob’s questions with the same trepidation any shy children would, glancing at their mother, who smiled back and nodded. The children attended school. The mother had not.
I was enchanted by the little girl, whose scarred and dirty face was beaming one moment, serious the next. Her radiant smile baring two chipped front teeth hinted of a tough life. Her rubber sandals were cracked, broken, and dirty. Her feet were caked with grime, her toenails chipped and encrusted. She wants to be a doctor.
The mother has five children: 3, 8, 11, 15, and 20. They live in a house where they pay a small rent. The children’s father is very ill, she told us. He was hit in the head recently. But she doesn’t drink or smoke, she emphasized, as if to counter an unsaid accusation. Also, her brother has been arrested and is in jail for two years. She didn’t elaborate, but added that she’s not afraid of police. She’s sad that she doesn’t have her own house—that’s her dream. To support her family, she collects plastic bottles.
“You ask hard questions,” our translator said, “very personal.”
Now Bob beat around a bush. Without asking directly, he tried to find out if the family had been approached by human traffickers or gangsters offering them a better life. He spoke directly to the children.
Our translator was not familiar with our peculiar area of interest and had no idea what we were getting at—which is just the way we wanted it. No interfering, no answering on behalf of the family or spinning their replies. It was interesting to observe his change in attitude. He softened toward the children, he was charmed by them, and impressed by the mother’s candid and sincere statements.
When Bob invited the mother to ask him questions, she had none. She simply smiled and said “I’m glad that you asked us all these questions and pleased that you are interested in our life.”
The family did not ask us for money, though we gave them some at the end. The children handled the bills reverently, then handed them to their mother. The woman was surprised and grateful.
Criminal Romanian begging rings
I have not seen any children (Roma or otherwise) begging in Sweden. I’m sure it wouldn’t be tolerated. However, Romanian children beggars and pickpockets are plentiful in England, Italy, Spain, France, and probably additional European countries, but those I have listed I have personal experience with.
Here’s a 2-minute BBC clip on Romanian child-beggars, human trafficking, begging-ring bosses, and new riches in poor Romanian villages.
Just a few years ago, one never saw beggars in Stockholm. Today, one never sees Swedish beggars, but beggars from Romania seem to be on every corner, at the door of every shop, and at every subway station entrance. It’s an orchestrated invasion; just like the organized Gypsy begging that has been investigated and documented in the U.K. However, in Stockholm, I haven’t (yet?) seen child beggars. Not even babes in arms. I suspect the kingpins are smart enough to realize that Sweden wouldn’t stand for that.
The Swedish government periodically debates the possibility of banning begging, but then, what would happen to the few homeless and drug-addicted Swedes who beg, and the few alcoholics out on the street? Where would they get cash?
Well then, let’s ban begging by foreigners! Good idea, but unlikely to happen any time soon, I think. Everything in Sweden happens by committee, and happens slooooowly.
Tools of the trade: “family” photos and a paper cup.A Swedish citizen donates to a Romanian beggar in StockholmThis couple just gave 100 crowns, about US$15, to a beggar-woman.A beggar in the Stockholm subway.
When border control within the European Union went soft, it didn’t take syndicate leaders long to take advantage of the new freedom of movement. Transnational criminal activities increased, particularly human trafficking.
For now, EU citizens are allowed to come to Sweden and stay without permission for up to three months. The Gypsy bosses know the rules. They transport the poor Romanian villagers, house them, feed them, and ferry them to their assigned begging spots. They come along and empty the cash-cups periodically.
Like the employees of a global theme park, all the Romanian beggars in Stockholm seem to be clones, all carbon copies of a model with a signature style. They all sit, they’re all wrapped in a blanket, they all hold a paper cup, and they all show photos of children. They all have a number of plastic bags near them, stuffed with things. They all block the flow of traffic.
Sweden is perfect…
Sweden is an excellent venue for this racket. Its citizens are wealthy, compassionate, and to some extent naive. The government is hamstrung and afraid to act. Tourists are rarely the budget type. I see people contributing to the cups (to the bosses’ riches); I’ve never seen meanness or complaint toward the beggars, not even hey-you’re-blocking-the-way.
The issue, the poor-Romanian-beggar, abused-victim-or-system-abuser conundrum, fraught with racial implications, is a bush to be beat around. In Sweden, there’s a ubiquitous fear of “what others think.” Everyone’s afraid to appear incorrect.
We spoke to a couple just after we saw them hand over a hundred crowns (about US$15) with a kind word and pat on the beggar’s arm. They give often, they said, whenever they can. They know these people are poor and need the money to feed their children. The couple buys into the scam hook, line, and sinker. Oh, I believe the beggars are poor and, since they don’t work, need help to support their families. But even the Romanian ambassador to Sweden thinks begging should be outlawed (and acknowledges that the beggars are her countrymen).
The beggars’ bosses* keep track of time. When three months are up, the gang is packed up and moved on for another stint elsewhere. Meanwhile, those at the top of the organized hierarachy build palatial houses back in their dumpy Romanian villages, and poor Romanian parents who “rented out” their children to begging and pickpocketing rings likewise see relative wealth.
Magician Charlie Caper performed well in spite of the beggar who hobbled onto the stage and disrupted his show.After the beggar-woman gains attention on stage, she heads out into the audience with her cup.After taking undue applause with the magician, the beggar proffers her cup and photo.The beggar smiled, pointed, gestured, and took the magician’s applause.The beggars are mostly women and usually have a number of stuffed plastic bags beside them.A beggar in StockholmA beggar in StockholmRomania’s Command Central in Stockholm? There’s always a cluster on the stairs at Sergel’s Plattan.
Bob and I strolled through Kungsträdgården, a central park area in Stockholm, while a street performers’ festival was in full swing. Magician Charlie Caper, surrounded by a good crowd, was mid-routine when one of these Gypsy beggars actually waddled on stage and joined him.
Atypical for her type and oddly gregarious, she seemed to thrive on the magician’s reflected attention. The brazen beggar gestured, she pointed, she ta-da’ed. And when the crowd applauded for the magician, she soaked it up all-smiles and headed into the audience with her cup and photo, as if she were collecting for her talented son. The audacity!
Is it good to give?
Let’s say for a moment that the gypsy beggars in Stockholm get to keep all the cash they collect. I know—but just for arguments’ sake. Then subtract what they must pay for transport from Romania and in three months, to some unknown point (by crowded bus?). And subtract what they pay for food, lodging, and local transportation (which is not cheap in Sweden). They must be gathering a pretty penny, to make their long days on the cold pavement (Sweden, winter…) worthwhile. Citizens and tourists fill the beggars’ cups and the Gypsies (often seen talking on their mobile phones) call their friends and relatives back home and urge them to hop on the next bus to Stockholm, the deal’s great.
Or let’s say it’s not like that at all. The beggars are basically slave labor, trafficked humans, forced to sit on the pavement all day, forced to follow company protocol behaving just so. Strict overseers collect the beggars’ takings periodically and they are given a small wage. Most of the money donated by good samaritans goes into the pockets of the ringleader who—it’s well-established by now—builds palatial mansions (relatively speaking) in Romanian villages otherwise full of wood shacks.* The whole enterprise is a social engineering stunt—one huge scam exploiting public empathy and generous social services.
Either way, depositing funds into the cup-accounts of bundled beggars on the street is not a smart way to help. It rewards the begging enterprise, feeds the criminal organization, and ensures the continuation of the practice. Donors are kindhearted patsies.
Of course Stockholm isn’t the only city under siege. In fact, all of Sweden, even small towns in the frigid north, has been invaded by organized Romanian beggars. Denmark made headlines when Trine Bramsen, justice police spokeswoman for its governing Social Democrat party, said “We don’t want to make Denmark a hotel with a reputation across Europe for free food and board.” She wants them to “choose another country, for example Sweden, where they know they have better possibilities.” Looks like that’s working.
Some parts of the Austria, for example Tyrol and Salzburg, tried to ban begging altogether. But the Constitutional Court overturned outright bans, ruling that begging is a human right.
The European Union is desperate for a solution but the problem is huge—far bigger than organized begging, even though these rings fall within the realm of human trafficking. “The problem of human trafficking in the European Union” is good read, freshly presented by the European Parliamentary Research Service.
A tool to combat trafficking, is knowledge of its causes and vulnerabilities of victims. This Romanian study of trafficking in persons for forced begging provides such a picture. It highlights the vulnerabilities of potential victims, the characteristics of traffickers and outlines recommendations on combating both these aspects. This study will assist in facilitating ongoing campaigns and cooperation to fight against this heinous crime, to fight for the protection, assistance to, and dignity of the victims and most importantly, to prevent trafficking.
Well-meant donations to beggars enrich the criminal syndicate leaders and further enslave the individuals forced into begging. Giving to beggars is misplaced kindness. The gift does not remain in the hand that receives it.
*Edited 7/29/14 to add support and sources:
“The leaders of a child-trafficking operation that put hundreds of beggars on the streets of Britain were targeted in a series of raids today in a remote Romanian town where opulent mansions have sprung up since the country joined the European Union. … at least 17 people were arrested after the raids on 33 homes in Tandarei [Romania] by a small army of organised crime investigators, assisted by 26 Metropolitan Police officers and two observers from Interpol. … Firearms, jewellery, luxury cars and large sums of money were found at the homes of suspects, according to local media, which said that 320 Romanian officers were involved in the operation. Tandarei, with its population of 12,000 people, 150km east of Bucharest, has undergone a seemingly miraculous economic boom in the past few years.” Police in Romania arrest leaders of child-trafficking operation in UK, The Times, April 8, 2010
If you don’t have a subscription to The Times and do not want to pay £1, the text is also here. Underline above is mine.
Edit: Finally, 10/4/14, Sweden admits out loud that the beggars are organized and pay big bucks to bosses.Beggars are Forced to Pay, in Dagens Nyheter, Swedens biggest daily paper. Here’s a Google-translation of the page.
Edit: It is mid-December, mostly dark and freezing out, and I see just as many beggars as in the summer. Perhaps more are in the subways and inside the entries of grocery stores than out in the streets, but they’re in full force. Well-bundled, at least.
Edit: Over six days walking all over London in August 2015, I saw exactly two beggars. Police tell me they are removed from the streets immediately and given food and shelter.
One of the more aggressive white-dressed beggars.White-dressed beggars pretended to speak Italian.White-dressed beggars in Stockholm’s Hötorget. Why the bride theme?White-dressed beggars in Stockholm’s Gamla Stan (old town). She was not happy being followed.
White-painted, white-draped “ghosts” are picking pockets in Stockholm’s most beautiful district, the national paper blared. Police are quoted: “The thieves are constantly finding new methods. Most often, prior to the theft, there is a distraction of some sort. These people are very aggressive and pushy which causes people to become quite perplexed.”
What? This sounded fishy to us. We’d noticed these people in Gamla Stan, Stockholm’s old town, all summer. Some approach with a begging hand or cup. Others appear abruptly and, oddly, lean in closely making kissy sounds, then bound off. Others offer to pose for photos.
How could these be pickpockets? Why would a pickpocket dress in such an obvious costume? Why would she face her victims so imploringly? How would the thief disappear once he’d stolen?
Sometimes they’re just a distraction, the police explained, according to Dagens Nyheter. They have partners who do the stealing.
So thiefhunters went looking for ourselves. Yep, they’re still there.
Costumed: dramatically.
Aggressive: yes.
Stealing: no.
Sometimes we saw partners, sometimes we didn’t. No matter—this M.O. did not make sense.
We tried to speak to a white-faced man in a sheet. He claimed to speak Italian but none of Bob’s rudimentary Italian worked. We’re pretty sure he’s from a country east of Italy. The man was cagey, but polite. He smiled blankly. He didn’t try to break away, but occasionally shook his cup at Bob, as if to remind us of his mission. If he understood anything we said, he didn’t let on.
Later, when approached by a begging white-clad female, I raised my camera and took her picture. She tilted her head and tipped her cup. I shot another few pictures and backed away a step. She advanced with a bland smile, apparently willing to continue this dance as long as it took.
But, of course they smiled and waited patiently. As we observed the ghosts in the act of begging, we saw almost half the people they approached drop coins into their cups! I’ve never done a survey of begging methods, but this seems like a high rate of return. These ghosts have a successful operation. They’ve found an M.O. that works. They’re smug.
But are they pickpocketing?
We called on our friends in the Stockholm Police Department. “The white-robed and white-painted people in Stockholm are beggars. There is no evidence whatsoever that they are pickpockets,” Officer Rolf Edin said emphatically. Their pushiness may cause people to believe that they are pickpockets, he posited.
Also, the policeman said, some of these white-robed beggars do some sort of performance, which gathers a crowd. “And pickpockets are drawn to a crowd like flies to a sugar cube,” he said, but that doesn’t mean that the white-robed beggars are in collaboration with the thieves.
“So far, it has not been possible to stop the ghost gang, which is believed to be behind several pickpocketing thefts,” the paper quoted police. Well, the named officer claims to have been misquoted, we were told.
Right. The paper ran the sensational headline. The writer chose to interpret every general statement about pickpocketing in Stockholm as an indictment against the mysterious white-dressed beggars. She didn’t answer my questions to her, except to acknowledge that she did speak with the officer she quoted. Somehow though, she got the story terribly wrong.
Thiefhunters are myth-busters
We surreptitiously tailed many of the white-dressed beggars as they looped the streets. In addition to the Stockholm police, we spoke with many people who work on the streets that the white-dressed beggars haunt. Shop owners, managers, living statues who see everything all day… They all said yes, they see the white-dressed beggars many times each day. No they haven’t seen them steal, haven’t seen any problem, haven’t had any complaints. Most of them had not even seen the accusation in the newspaper, though one had seen the suspicion raised in a tv news report.
Thiefhunters’ take: Nope. The white-dressed beggars are not pickpockets. They’re beggars. Why are they dressed in white? Good question. But why call them “ghosts”? One is wearing a wedding dress and veil. Another is in rainbow clown hair, for goodness sake. Answer: “Ghost Pickpockets” is a great headline! It sells papers.
The white-dressed beggars who jump into your face are certainly irritating; but pickpockets they are not.
Professional beggars who understand the power of eye contact.
I’m a sucker for adorable beggar children on the streets of Mumbai. It’s impossible to look away, not reach for a coin. Now that I understand that so many poor farmers from faraway villages flock to the big city in desperation after their crops fail, that they can’t find work, have families to feed and debts to pay, my heart breaks for adult beggars, too.
But begging is also an industry; one that can sometimes net a better living than many honest jobs—hard labor earning barely enough money for food. A Mumbai local explained that these professional beggars know exactly where to hang out for the biggest return. While the locals may offer a rupee, tourists will easily hand over a 100 rupee note. Though only worth about two U.S. dollars, it’s a windfall to the panhandler. This sort of begging is so lucrative, my friend told me, that it for some it is a career. He described seeing beggars don shabby costumes, muss their hair, and dirty their faces before going to work.
And there are begging scams, too, like the mothers-with-babies (rented) who beg for milk powder, lead you to a nearby shop where you buy milk at an inflated price, and when you leave she returns the milk to the shop and splits the money with the shopkeeper.
Makes a person skeptical, even suspicious. And confused, because Mumbai has severe poverty, destitution, despair, and wretchedness. Heartstrings tugged, or legs pulled?
Beggars can be compelling. I fell for this family, a mother and her three boys, at Mumbai’s Dadar train station, in a chaotic crossroads like a Third World Times Square, an area far from any tourist zone.
The woman made a continuous loud honking noise by rubbing a stick on one side of a drum she carried hanging from her neck, and beating it on the other side. Meanwhile, her gorgeous painted boys turned their enormous eyes up to me. The boys had rope whips slung on their shoulders, wore bright skirts and anklets of bells. I was transfixed; couldn’t be bothered with a camera—I fumbled for coins. Bob, as always, had a video running.
Why the whips? Why the awful racket scraped on the drum? What’s on the woman’s head?
The heavy load on her head causes perfect posture and slow, elegant movements.
These are the Potraj people, seldom seen nowadays and said to be fast-vanishing. They are nomads who represent the goddess Kadak Lakshmi, or Mariai. When the Potraj are heard in the neighborhood, superstitious and religious women, of which there are many, run out and give alms. What is frightening about the ritual performed by the Potraj is the fierce self-flagellation practiced during trance-like dances to the “music” produced by the woman with the drum. A wonderful description of a child petrified by the mysterious Potraj is told by that child grown up. He called his nemesis the “boogoo-boogoo man,” and although he had nightmares about the Potraj as if he were a bogeyman, he refers to the sound of the scraping of the drum: boogoo-boogoo-boogoo-boogoo.
Watch the video if you dare. The sound may haunt you.
The male beats himself—hard—while his wife or mother stands by like a one-man-band and takes offerings. She balances a heavy wooden altar on her head, in which sits a statue of her goddess. Children begin as trainees at a painfully young age, and have their own little whips.
Disappearing into the crowd, the woman takes one last look at us.
I saw one of these Potraj in Chennai a few months ago. He was on a tea break. I didn’t notice if a woman was with him. I had no idea what he did, either. His colorful costume was arresting, and the long yellow rope whip slung over his shoulder fascinated me.
7:00 a.m. in the Colaba Market area, where life is lived outdoors as much as in. Residents were just beginning their day. Someone was asleep on a handcart under a cloth. Others slept on the ground, on palanquins, on steps. A man stood in the road brushing his teeth vigorously with his finger. A boy sat among his goats, which nuzzled and cuddled him. Men and women arranged technicolor produce in baskets, for sale. Handcarts rushed by in every direction.
A chicken truck squeezed through the narrow lane, carrying seven stories of live caged birds. The driver hung a scale from the back of the truck and extracted a fistful of chickens—that is, a fistful of their legs. They hung upside down like a giant flapping pompom as the murgh-walla tied the bundle of legs and hooked the now calm birds on his scale. A customer, or perhaps he was a delivery-man, threw three large bundles over his shoulder against his filthy shirt.
Around the corner, a banana truck unloaded huge stalks of green bananas onto the shoulders of runners. An old, frail man came back again and again, each time carrying three massive stalks stacked on his left shoulder, while a larger, younger man carried two stalks.
Cats, dogs, goats and babies played in the dust and litter. Bob and I were ignored, or greeted with smiles and waves. Several Colaba Market residents directed us to some nearby point to see the sea. We wandered off in that direction, leaving the wide street of multi-story buildings. We wound through labyrinthine alleys of rickety dwellings and make-shift shelters of scraps and tarps. Customers were already seated in an open-air barber shop, a tailor measured and cut cloth, and a man pressed trousers with an antique iron full of glowing coals.
As we approached the sea, the dusty ground became black muck. A gang of small boys ran around us with squirt guns. “Water shower!” one shouted, as he fired a stream into the air. Old wooden boats lined the route to the bay, tilting in the mud, weeds growing through their broken bottoms. Black crows perched on their structures, surveying the garbage strewn about. The stench was overpowering. It became clear to me that we had entered a dump. A few lone men and boys passed us, walking through the putrid sludge toward the water. I hurried forward, eager to get past the fetter—until I caught sight of the view.
A hundred small boats lay bobbing on the still water of the bay, colorless and silvery against the white morning light. Across the bay, an easy walk away, the red dome and new tower of the Taj Mahal Hotel rose in stark contrast to trash-strewn beach at my feet. I was transfixed by the disparity, and began taking pictures. Crows cawed and little waves splashed against the rocky shore.
Suddenly I noticed the few men here and there on the beach and at the water’s edge. I was staring at their toilet. Appalled and mortified, I hurried away. Bob followed. We cut through a low part of the slum instead of retracing our path. It was neat and organized, with muddy but clean paths. The friendly smiles of women and children just starting their day helped me recover from my shameful, insensitive behavior. A tiny girl ran behind me calling “auntie! auntie!” When I turned, the child game me a huge grin. “Happy Holi,” she said, giving us a useful phrase that made everyone smile.
Holi is India’s spring festival of colors, a day on which people get wild and crazy and throw colors in the form of powdered dye.
Another day, after a fabulous meal at Soam, we walked the few blocks to the north end of Chowpatty Beach and began to walk south around the huge crescent of sand packed with people. A tiny naked boy ran up to us, hand out. He was filthy and gorgeous, and trotted along side us with bouncy little steps. He couldn’t have been more than five years old.
We tried to ignore him, afraid he’d get lost following us so far. I wondered if he had a mother, and how such a young child could be allowed to run loose and barefoot through dangerous traffic. Did he have anyone to care for him? I wondered what he’d do if I scooped him up, washed him, and fed him. Would he eventually feel a need to go back “home”? Did he have a home? Would he know how to find it? Or would he be content to stay with strangers who took good care of him? Then I wondered how the Indian government would react if I said I wanted to take him home and provide for him.
I was sad when the little boy finally left us. I worried about him finding his way back. But maybe “back” was just a point—the spot where he found us, with no other significance. Maybe he has no place at all; he sleeps where he is when he gets tired. I saw quite a few children asleep in strange places. One boy of three or four was sprawled across the middle of a busy sidewalk. That he hadn’t been trampled seemed a miracle.
Later, a former police officer from Mumbai told me that the boy definitely had someone watching him, and that he’d been sent to beg. At least his perfect little body hadn’t been maimed for “professional” advantage.
A huddle of people sat on the sidewalk at the edge of the beach. A woman was tattooing the arm of her customer. A boy held together a stack of D cell batteries from which a pair of wires connected to the buzzing tattoo gun.
Bob and I saw less misery in the streets of Mumbai compared to previous visits. We saw fewer people sleeping in the open, and far fewer beggars. On arrival at Mumbai airport, visitors used to be circled by aggressive beggars the moment they stepped outside. That situation no longer exists. Police told us the city is able to feed many street children, but that it’s an enormous financial drain.
This visit, I saw very little street food outside of officially regulated restaurants. Bhel puri, the famous Chowpatty Beach snack, used to be made à la minute at carts on every corner. Trucks and taxis do much less horn-honking now. Restaurants are smoke-free.
Our cool and quiet hotel was right off the hectic Colaba Causeway. A table in the lobby held two thermos pitchers, one of sweet chai, one of arabic coffee. Between them was a small water-filled bowl in which four tiny glasses were submerged. As the day went by, the water got cloudy and murky. The water (and glasses?) were occasionally freshened.
