Rescued children adapt themselves to new environs

By Our Staff Reporter

HYDERABAD, APRIL 23. Their heads clean shaven and gleaming in the afternoon sun, the kids line up for the noon meal. They laugh at one another seeing the tonsured heads. While one girl cries for food, another drifts into fitful sleep, at peace with the world.

Peace has eluded them in their two years of rudderless existence away from the warmth of the mother's lap. They troop into the mess where food is served. But, they hold their hunger pangs and watch wonder eyed as other children recite a prayer before digging into food.

These were infants brought from the John Abraham Memorial Betheny Home, Tandur, to "Shishu Vihar", the State run home for orphans, coming to terms with a new atmosphere. One that is miles apart from their cloistered existence.

But, the matrons would never forget the moment the infants along with some toddlers landed at "Shishu Vihar" after a tortuous journey in two rickety ambulances from Tandur on a hot and sultry afternoon.

"We have never seen anything like this. When the ambulance door opened, an intolerable stench hit us. It was worse than the putrefying smell of flesh," recalls Ms. Krishna Jyothi, a woman and child welfare officer, while the others watch with dazed faces.

Shuddering at the very thought, one baby-sitter sighed, "I wonder how they were brought to the city. There were lice all over the unkempt hair and their physical condition spoke volumes about the gross neglect they were subjected to. We were scared to look at them."

Their heads tonsured and a laborious scrub later, the infants regained some lost colour. "We got their clothes and bed sheets burnt immediately," the nannies recall. Sandhya, all of three years old, enquires whether she can touch a toy lying in her ward.

Her wavy-haired friend with a precocious grin asks a nurse maid whether she can have some fruits. "They are apprehensive in whatever they do. Obviously, they had a restricted life all these years at Tandur," says Ms. Jyothi. "Some of them were asking for chalks and slates," says another baby-sitter. And none of them ever went to a school.

So famished were the children when they were brought here that they ate ravenously but began to suffer from bouts of diarrhoea. "This is a normal phenomenon. Once their system gets adjusted to food again, they would be fine," she says, adding, "More than the food, they need to be showered with affection." The question is, whether it is available in abundance?

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