Where the Streets Have No Name: Mohd. Abdul Kasim Ali Shaikh
"The worse I appear, the better it is for me. No one will approach me." Mohammad Abdul Kasim Ali Shaikh, a rickshaw-puller in Delhi's Chandni Chowk area has many questions to ask. Repeatedly sexually abused as a child, Kasim has grown up on the streets - homeless, lonely and HIV positive. "Where does the homeless person belong," he asks. "What does he inherit, what does he leave behind? Who creates troubles in the world. It is not poor people like me who are responsible for terror crimes. It is those who are in power, whose name I cannot take..." Kasim has known abuse, humiliation and the desperate ignominy of hunger all his life. Today he has access to food, shelter and medicines in a recovery shelter run by Centre for Equity Studies in Delhi. Can Kasim find peace now? Will the city and its people offer him solace and a place to call his own?
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