Hundreds of homeless children eke a living around New Delhi’s station Photo: ALAMY

In 1999, a homeless 11-year-old boy with a glue-sniffing habit jumped off a train that was pulling into New Delhi railway station and vanished into the surrounding shadow-world of the desperate and destitute. Ten years later that kid stands before me on one of the station platforms in the heart of India’s capital. His name is Brijesh Pandey and he radiates charm and self-confidence.

“I changed myself,” he declares in perfect English. “I don’t know how, but I did it.” His modesty belies the spirit that enabled him to overcome the beatings, imprisonment, solvent addiction and ill-health that are so often the lot of children living on the streets of India’s cities. But he didn’t come through alone. Brijesh is testament to the life-saving work done by the Salaam Baalak Trust, a charity for which he now works as a tour guide.

Salaam Baalak (literally, Greetings Street Child) offers daily tours of the area of New Delhi station, where hundreds of homeless children eke a living just as Brijesh once did. Most are runaways from the countryside fleeing abuse and exploitation. The guides have a unique insight into their predicament because they are themselves former street children.

New Delhi station abuts the tourist neighbourhood of Paharganj, with its cheap hotels and teeming Main Bazaar. Many tourists instinctively shy away from the poverty they find on these chaotic streets. The Salaam Baalak tours are a corrective to that instinct, a revelation of the human face behind the deprivation… Continue reading