Down-and-Outs of Howrah

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Temperatures in West Bengal go above 42°C in summers. In the monsoon, it rains almost endlessly for months. The bridge provides peaceful shelter to these down-and-outs.

Many of these people are mentally ill.

Drug addiction is the only source of ‘escape’ from their harsh realities.

In spite of the extreme hustle-and-bustle around, under the bridge there’s an uneasy stillness. No one talks, no one moves. A few tortured eyes stare blankly at each other.

One question has remained unanswered: Is addiction responsible for homelessness? Or is homelessness responsible for addiction?

On some days every week, someone brings a car full of food-packets for the ill-fated people of Howrah. Some of these men go and get food-packets if they’re lucky enough and if they arrive early to queue.

In the darkness under the bridge, you can hear cries, and laughter and someone coughing or someone calling god. And sometimes when you look carefully, you can see a few faces smiling at you in the darkness: faces of sufferers; faces of fighters.

Quite a few of them are young men in their late teens or early twenties. Most had run away from home and were ‘railway-children’ before their harsh lives broke them.

I’ve been warned many times by many privileged people, not to go on a shoot there. ‘It is a notorious place and you may face some great problems! Anti-socials, drug-addicts and lunatics only frequent the place. Not worth taking the risk!’ If that’s the general perception, how can anyone bring about positive changes?

Apart from several emotional problems, many of these individuals face physical-problems like acute bronchitis and asthma, liver problems, open wounds and infections, to name a few. It’s highly possible that some of them may be HIV Positive, because of the common practice of using shared needles.

The idea of highlighting a problem is to find a solution. I am hopeful that by sharing this photo-essay, there will be a few solutions at the end of the day.

By Soham Gupta

The Howrah Bridge:  More than 1,000,000 pedestrians and approximately 80,000 vehicles use it every day. It connects the twin cities of Howrah and Calcutta, separated by the river Ganges in her lower course. But little is known about a small group of homeless individuals, who live under it. Many of them have taken to drugs and most have developed mental disorders in the course of their life.  Some of them even show symptoms of AIDS because of the common practice of using shared needles. While some of these people had originally left their home in the rural parts of Eastern India (West Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand and Orissa) to migrate to Howrah/Calcutta in search of jobs, some of them are simply runaways. Most of them have ended up being destitute in the ‘twin-cities’. All of their dreams have been shattered and the ‘big cities’ have proved to be completely different from the image they had in their minds, of them. Biswal, from Orissa, who ran away from home in his village in Dhenkanal, in search of fortune, told me, ‘I’ve heard so much about Calcutta and Howrah. Before I landed here, I heard that money floated in the air here!’

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About the Author

Soham Gupta is a young humanitarian photographer, based in Calcutta, India. Through his photos, he loves to celebrate life. Soham initially started off as a writer but later realized that he has the ability to tell stories in a better way, through photographs. He wants to give voice to the voiceless: the disadvantaged people of our earth.To see more of his works, go to http://sohamgupta.wordpress.com/

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