(Namchi, 31st March, 2024)
The Sikkim state as it was reported back few years, was a beggers-free state, and a Shrawan Kumar Award was introduced by State Government, only recently. But Namchi town is currently spotting aged people on the streets at night hours, increasingly.

If someone is talking to them, it is mostly found that they have families, who have given up on taking them back. They are homeless, live in the street, and written below are the accounts as exactly said by the non-professionals.

Why are these elderly people choosing to take the cold of the street and survive on foods passed by ‘good Samaritans’, rather than going back to their shelter?

Kumari Tamang (not original first name), who lives near Sakha Busty, above the town, after losing her son to an accident was earning from labour jobs at construction sites from in and around Namchi bazaar. She suffers from high blood pressure, and other undiagnosed diseases. She is often found asking for rupees to buy herself lunch in the daytime.

Another, Pavitra Rai (not original name), of Purano Namchi, slept through the nights of last few months, and refuses to go home. She still sleeps in a bench of Central Park, undisturbed and responding. She often asks for money to drink alcohol from the street people.

A few hours before, in the evening this blog was being written, ie., on March 31, a group of youths found Meena Gurung, at Turuk Busty sitting at the roadside. She was unable to speak clearly, because of losing her teeth to age. After much phone calls and trying to converse with Meena Gurung, the youths found that she have relatives in places near Namthang Bazaar and Namchi Bazaar. The youths left her at Police Post of Bhanjyang, en-route to Namchi, but after a few hours, she reached Namchi Bazaar in a private vehicle, and stood there for hours looking towards the town from Bhanjyang Road.

Interestingly, all these street women are aged, and poor, and individually surviving in the good wills of the passersby. And these three were the only ones who could be contacted, by no professionals. It is still a wonder as to how many more are lost in this junction of town life and death of the youth age.