Bang Bang Galore!

A Filmmaker’s BLOGELLA
Written by Steve Rosenberg

Blog 30 (Faisel’s disappearance)

Faisal’s disappearance caught me by surprise and I feel a personal loss in his departure. He is like the stray cat that you can’t help but feel is yours to save. John speaks to a clerk at the bus station and learns that Faisel managed to gather enough money to buy himself a ticket back to Bangalore. “It always the same with Faisel. He comes, he goes!” I am astonished that Faisel is able to raise two-hundred rupees in a matter of hours. Two hundred Rupees is probably akin to three days salary in this small town. He is a talented beggar; he is that one pesky kid who you just can’t refuse.

I miss Faisel, so I am on the hunt for him. When a child runs away from home, he usually turns up at the crowded railway stations and tries his luck at begging. Begging is a shitty way to earn a living. You are damaged goods and no more than a nuisance. God knows what else happens there, but I am told that many kids are introduced to the pleasures of sniffing correction fluid.

This barefooted thirteen- year old kid with two missing front teeth has one million animated expressions to speak to me without words.  He is warm, thoughtful and deeply troubled. We get along famously, but I still can’t read his pain. I am missing a key interview in which I should have asked him about his life on the streets, his facial scars and his early family life. I kept thinking I would do it, but I didn’t want to kill the good vibe we were having on the trip.

John tells me that Faisal’s mom is a poor uneducated woman who works as a domestic. His mother has decided her son is no better than the dirt she sweeps in her client’s homes and his father is AWOL. John remembers Faisal recounting a story about how his mother disowned wished death upon her son and disowned him. I am sad for Faisal and for the millions of kids like him who are denied love.