A Home, For Now...

Today, I went into Sion Police Station and, after listening to excuses for another hour, I was finally sent on my way with one of the policemen. It was time for Himesh to leave the hospital.

Four hours went into meeting with the medical social worker, Dean, and the Deputy Dean, of which two hours went into waiting around for the ward doctors to discharge Himesh. By now, the nurses had started to recognize me and made small talk.

But we were getting restless. We had to make it to the Dongri magistrate’s office and present Himesh’s case before the court before 5pm that day. Tomorrow is a public holiday and failure to make the deadline would delay us by another three days. I had built up the momentum up until now and it would be a shame to see it go to waste because of the inefficiency on the part of others. Himesh packed up of his belongings, all his clothes, toys, and medicines fitting into 3 small bags. We made it to the police station by 3pm, had the report written up by 4pm, and rushed to Dongri.

Only once the court had heard the case could anything related to putting him in a shelter or ashram be done for Himesh. We reached on time and waited outside the office. There was a ‘middle-man,’ or dalaal (another word for pimp, in Hindi), standing around and taking bribes to help shuttle people who needed their work done urgently in and out of the lawyers’ offices.

They had a juvenile detention facility within the court’s compound, and keeping Himesh there was out of the question. The boys there were older, had committed smaller-scale but serious crimes, and it was no place for a boy who needed to recover. The superintendent did not approve either. The magistrate told me point blank that I should readmit Himesh back into the hospital and come back in fifteen days. He was someone who was used to giving a command and having it obeyed, but I did not flinch. I couldn’t believe my ears…so I demanded that he give me in writing that by court order I was to take Himesh back to the hospital and that there would be a female constable supervising him 24/7. After all, the child was now the government’s responsibility. He backed off immediately.

He wrote that by court order, Himesh was to be taken to an ashram near Sion Hospital. This occurred without consulting that ashram for availability or for Himesh’s eligibility as an HIV-positive child who needed special medical attention at the same time.

There was no time for questions. The office closed and we were sent out. The repeated questioning had worn Himesh out and he was quietly crying to himself for the rest of the evening. We went to the ashram and spent another two hours admitting him there. They agreed to take him in but only temporarily because they do not keep males over the age of six in their ashram. As we left, Himesh began crying loudly. This was not the first time he had been abandoned…