My name is Arvind. I am ten years old. The middleman came and took me from home to the station. He gave my parents 500 rupees [$11]. He told us that they’re going take us and let us study and we were very happy. But after some time they showed us a knife. When they showed us the knife, we were eating our food and we all starting crying. We were on the train and that’s when Ratnaji came and he took us off the train and took us to the police station. They saved our lives. We were very happy.
I like it very much over here. We get to study, we do a few light chores around the place and we get to play. I want to study further but when I get holidays I’ll go back home.I told father that I’ll be good and I won’t fight with anybody, I’ll stay happily over here and study some more. I want to study Hindi and math and I want to become a collector after studying so I can help people who are sick. I’ll sing a few lines of a song. Yama, yama, ya…a, a, a. I feel bad about kids who are sold. It happens only to the people who are poor and need the money.
Narrative as told to Free the Slaves, August 19, 2004, at Bal Vikas Ashram, in Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh, India
