The Intermission.

Dear Readers and Followers, After all the debacle of London life.I am back to my native land.A small piece of paradise in the Indian Ocean.If you have heard or thought about Mauritius you are already halfway to heaven.i am very thankful to all my readers and followers,who have supported me in a way or other through my short journey in London,the land of opportunity.I am back on track now and will start writing the rest of my memoir,which i hope you will have pleasure in reading and sharing.

short journey, long distance: shortjourneylongdistance

short journey, long distance: shortjourneylongdistance: http://vimeo.com/36692664

Interview for Radio Camden

This interview was done for Radio Camden in the context of the International Migrants Day.



Migrant Resource Centre
Camden Radio

AN AUDIT TRAIL

The issue of homelessness has been addressed in different quarters these days. I have done some research from various sources to present a quite critical diagnosis many people don’t know or have never thought about. From outreach to the day centres, from tale tellers to fortune tellers in the field of homelessness or rough sleeping, evangelist to philanthropists, from police to policy makers. But very little or almost not much has been concretely done for a long term and durable solution to this issue.

Based on statistics, the true issue lies very deep rooted in the build up of our modern society and the economic implications dragged along with it. Information differs from one source to another, and the interpretation and appreciation are quite arguably controversial and debatable. I am using most of the information from the homeless links to portrait a clear and accurate view of the problem.

Out of a population of 7 million people in London, we have about three thousand people found rough sleeping in 2010. 50% of whom are British born, 26% are from the European community or the Euro zone, and the rest are mostly from the commonwealth states or previously member of the commonwealth. So we have a clear cut pattern of statistics showing a substantial migrant movement, which in itself is more of a political nature along with economic enlargement and eventually an inherited cultural background. If we push our understanding a bit further, half of the rough sleepers or homeless is of an imported nature.

Very little has been done by the authorities, especially the Home Office to inform or advise the consulates and the embassies of these foreign countries of the very difficult economic situation prevailing. Information about the present condition might help people abroad understand the problem from a specific angle and prevent them from coming to look where the grass seems to be greener but not much left to be grazed anymore. International charities like the Red Cross should review their policy about helping refugees and asylum seekers. They should perhaps help these countries build their own economy and political system, resulting in better quality of life for its own citizens. Encouraging people fleeing their own country is not a solution and many refugees and asylum seekers end up being homeless and destitute in worse conditions on the streets of London. With all the immigration bashing going on, it will be more and more difficult for these people to make a life in a foreign country

. On the other hand, 38% of the rough sleepers have had a jail sentence at some point of their lives. 38% are either alcoholics or drug addicts and the rest have some kind of mental illness or dysfunctions. If we take into account all these basic factors, we come to the conclusion that homelessness is more of a social problem than the result of an economic hardship of the recent financial tsunami or credit crunch. In other words it seems like the problem is a product of an outrageous capitalism or simply a too sophisticated form of modern socialism. Furthermore it can be defined as the residual waste product of the terrible twin brothers that are capitalism and socialism. They walk rubbing shoulders, but they hate and despise each other. Should we call it homelessness, rough sleeping or the window of a broken society which needs a thorough mending? By all means a storm is brewing somewhere, somehow for sure. We can feel it but do not want to see it.

Very often we tend to point our finger elsewhere, without knowing how much dirt we have under our own finger nails. Too often we go for easy piece-meal solutions, rather than taking tough and robust measures or long term remedies, without an overhauling of the real problem. Statistics are often compiled for the sake of the gallery and studies and researches are to fill the pockets of too many consultancy firms which grow like mushrooms after some rainy spells. Politicians always twist and turn the real issue to their own convenience and get away unscratched. Very few are outspoken and those who are, are always dwarfened and silenced by some obscure forces for the sake of some perverse doctrines and ideologies. The media keep the ball rolling, with their tabloidism, leftist, rightist, or centrist opinions. Intellectual writers are more worried to please their highbrow readers. Religions are too busy building the bridge or the ladder to the eternal and proverbial heaven. Eventually the poor, the lower social class, the secluded are left to make a feast of the easy drugs, alcohol availability and producing babies to get hold of the benefit system trains, which if you miss one ,you get another every next five minutes. This is a panoramic view of our modern twenty-first century society.

When we analyse the homeless people who have been jailed at some point of their lives; the drug addicts and the alcoholics, we see that these people were either from broken families’ or poor parenting in their childhood. Most important they come from families who have never worked or will never work. These people live under the wings of the sophisticated form of modern socialism, which are child benefit, child tax credit, job seekers allowances and housing benefits. Many produce children to get all these benefits. This country has too many fathers but very few dads. This pattern has been going for generations and is very likely to continue forever if nothing is done to overhaul the system. It has become a vicious circle which goes on and on.

Most of the jail sentences are for minor offences; shop lifting, small robbery or begging to feed their addiction to alcohol and drugs. Here there is something we call dependency addiction as well. Most of these people allow themselves to be dependent on another person. Allowing yourself to be dependent on another person is the worst possible thing you could do. You would be better off depending on drugs as long as you can have a supply of it, it will never let you down if it is there. It will always make you happy. But if you expect another person to make you happy, you will be endlessly disappointed. It is no accident that most common disturbance that passive dependent people manifest beyond the addictionships to others is dependency on drugs and alcohol. Theirs is the addictive personality. They are addicted to people, sucking on them and gobbling them up. When people are not available, they often turn to bottles, needles or the pills as people substitute . That is where the sin of addiction is born.

The tendency to avoid problems and the emotional sufferings inherent in them is the primary basis of all human mental illness. People coming from poor parenting, social seclusion, lack of discipline at an early stage of their life or the waste of an education system too demanding for their social taste, or at some extent people coming from chaotic and disordered homes will always end up having neurotic and character disorders. Neurotics make themselves miserable, while character disorders person makes others life miserable. Character disorder parents almost inevitably produce character disordered or neurotic children. When character disordered individuals blame someone else like: a spouse, a child, a friend, a parent, an employer, or something else: bad influence, the schools, the government,racism,sexism,society,the system, for their problem, these problems persist and nothing can be accomplished.

On the other hand, abusive use of substance, along with alcohol abuse ends up into acute depression or illness like schizophrenia, which are very difficult to cure at some stage and keep on sending people on the street. The question is whether we deal with these problems adequately or do we just concentrate on the rough sleeping of what is homelessness. Do psychiatrist and psychotherapist have an answer to it or do we have to go back to the roots of the problem, where nobody dares to go or mention. While the custodian of law and justice apply the rules, they never think of the aftermath of these sentencing. Moreover when these offenders are out of jail, they do not have any after care service and are forced back on the street to offend again and again. Will our legal and judicial system have a different social approach when doing the sentencing? Is there room for the philanthropist to find or apply some remedy? Can the authorities apply the rules and solve the problem? Or do we simply not have any solution at all?

When we compare the available statistics, any decent person would be shocked to find why we have failed or the system is failing. London has 65 charities or organisations running soup runs and 160 charities for homeless people only. When you add up the millions of investment from the authorities and the outreach, homelessness seems to be a multi-million business. Who knows who is benefitting from this system? Does it make sense, when out of a population of 7 million; we cannot solve the life of 3000 homeless people in London?

The Westminster council move to pass the by-law that will ban outdoor soup runs has been criticized from all quarters. I have experienced the soup run myself as a homeless person for nine months. I can say without any doubt that any decent person would agree with me with the degrading nature how it is being done or run. Especially in winter they do not have a specific time to do it, and rough sleepers wait under the bitterly cold and gusty winds for some sandwiches and hot drinks. We homeless people are not that hungry to eat a cow on the doormat. It is our heart and soul that is hungry for a decent hot meal in a decent place. A decent long term accommodation that puts us back to normal life where we can wake up in the morning from a bed like any decent person. Charities, media and the authorities should stop treating homelessness as an entity. One doesn’t have to consult homeless people to come with whatever policy. What they have to do is find long-term and durable solution. Treat the problem from the root, (the social and family breakdown). Homelessness is and should be considered as temporary accident of fate and misfortune of circumstances.

Necessity being the mother of all invention. Let us see the purpose and use of day centres. They operate less than six hours a day. Which is quite insignificant, when you take into account the amount of time rough sleepers have to spare and idle themselves with nowhere to go? Though some day centres run some quite interesting and useful recreational and emotional activities, the time of idleness of these rough sleepers absorbs all the benefiting factors of these activities and leaves them back on vulnerable terms for the rest of the day. Day centres should be opened 24 hours. This would inadvertently cut the cost of providing temporary hostel accommodations which are worse and inhumane in some cases. Hostels are not the solution and it is a waste of the housing benefit budget which amounts to billions. I use a day centre where the annual budget is 4 million pounds. An average of 50 homeless people use it daily and the other 50 are accommodated temporarily in hostels overnight. The average head count per year is 34,500 using it at any time. A simple calculation brings us to an average of £100 spent per head per day. I have personally used this day centre for more than a year and I am still using it though I am living in a private shelter overnight. The total amount spent on me is £36,500 and the irony is I am still homeless. I am far from blaming the day centre as an organisation or charity. But I am questioning if the system is worth the people’s expectations?

Another obscure area where millions are spent on hostels is the Thames Outreach. On a budget of £19 million, £11 millions are spent on staff salary. (Figures are from the annual report of the Thames outreach.)There are more than 300 staffs on their establishment.

Most recent development in the political and economic climate has forced some interesting debate on the fact and form of a society almost in utter turmoil. The so call big society was a non starter and the bit of the tsar’s episode made it a lame duck. We all know that the prime minister has the passion of a reformed and fair society and he means business, when he made the big society his priority as soon as he took office. But obscure forces, a section of the press and some loony comedians have made a fool of him and the big society. Neither the spending cuts have helped to generate the positive impact it needed for the smooth take off. But do we always need the government or the authorities to decide or to mould and shape a fair and decent model of society based on mutual understanding and self-help? I would like to give a blatant example of how and where the big society can be started without much effort and resource, or any trumps and trumpette.I was homeless for almost a year when I was referred to the Shelter from the Storm in Islington which is run by two great souls and their army of volunteers. It is a shelter for homeless people irrespective of their age, nationality, social problems or physical and mental impairment. Sometimes it even caters for some pregnant homeless women. It does not depend on any state funding and is totally run on donations and fund raised by the shelter.

It provides night shelter for 36 beds, seven days a week all round the year. It opens at 6pm in the evening and closes at 8am in the morning. Hot meals and breakfast are served every day. It has an army of about 200 volunteers mostly professionals, skill workers, ex homeless and students. It is a non religious organisation, with no great or sophisticated logistic support or bureaucratic hazards. The set-up is done in such a way where an average of 10 to 15 volunteers prepares hot meals every evening in a convivial environment. The kitchen-dinning is an open area where some of the professionals engage themselves in the emotional well being of the guests. It helps them overcome their loneliness, and previous everyday hardships by sleeping miles of rough sleeping nights. The irony is that the place doesn’t even have an office. Their motto is to serve the guests to the best of their ability and knowledge. There has never been any training and one does not need any specific qualification to be part of the dedicated team.

The budget per head per night is £10 compared to the day centre I have mentioned earlier which is £100.The annual budget is around £131,400:(36X365X10).Most of the guests come from either recent jail sentences, or have substance abuse or alcohol related problems and immigration and asylum cases. They are supported emotionally and helped towards long term accommodations. Some youngsters are helped to find jobs in the Prêt A Manger chain which supports the shelter. Pool table, regular distribution of clothes, laundry service and a small library is also available. One can also use a daily slot of twenty minutes of the internet service. Yoga classes add to housing and benefit advice on a weekly basis. All is done in total confidentiality and there is zero tolerance policy for being abusive, racist or using alcohol and drugs in the premises.

This shelter is a model and the birth place of the so called big society, which we all dream, but think is too big to achieve. We do not need to be taught or mentored how the big society should be. We all on a regional or community basis can do something to bring our contribution to the less fortunate people. The passion of the prime minister is not and will never be enough to create a big society. Each and every individual who has at heart the progress of humanity can bring his lot of contribution. Some can do it through different charities and organisations, but we need a lot more than that to succeed. The spending cuts are not and should not be a barrier or excuse to halt the big society. People of good faith can and should start doing it in their locality and community. While the authority and especially the press should focus more on encouraging every little efforts and initiatives rather than pointing fingers in all directions and dimensions.

It is not only for the homelessness; it can be done in a wide range and share of social life like good parenting, local youth activities, clubs for senior citizens, family planning and birth control or teenage pregnancies. The most important bit is to inculcate a sense of belonging and responsibility to those who have never worked. Why can’t evangelists and philanthropist go and preach on these issues to this secluded community? These are the most causes of a broken society. There is no point producing big and lengthy literatures and leaflets or media adverts. It is time for personal involvements and actions. The volunteers involved in the shelter from Storm are a lively example of commitment. Work done in all these basic structures will in fact bring tangible results in the long-run.

There is no magic solution to eradicate homelessness in the world. Those who are thinking or planning to end homelessness by 2012 are either living in dream land or fooling themselves and the authorities. There is no short term solutions, without an overall hauling of the benefit, education, health and housing system.

From my personal experience of being homeless for almost a year, I would like to suggest some measures which might help to launch a national debate on the causes and repercussions of homelessness. It may sound barbaric and quite controversial, especially in some quarters, but I think it’s my duty to at least voice out my personal opinion.

(1) A national bank of volunteers could be created, with a database and a call centre to provide volunteers to set up satellite villages, with one stop-shop to those in need to give up addiction from drugs and alcohol. It should have a health centre, police post, outdoor games, with a control access to undesirable people. At the same time those suffering from mental illness due to addiction to these substances are treated in these satellite villages, with expert help and social and recreational involvement, as self-help projects, education and training to get them back to normal life. It should be in the form of a social (quarantine).Maybe some human right champions would find the word too degrading, but believe me, there is nothing more degrading than being a prisoner of addiction. Training should be in fields to suit this vulnerable groups like City guides, Map readers, Craft works,Crochet,Artisanal products and light apprentices cut to the tastes and ability of these people. They should be able to sell their products. It will be productive and will give them their sense of belonging back. This will be more cost effective in the long-run and save the NHS millions at the other end.

(2) Day centres should be opened 24 hours and should be limited in maintaining minimal personal well being until proper accommodation is found by the authorities. Usually it has been a duplication of service for the day centres to get involved in accommodation and benefit search. The vagrancy act should be used to bring the rough sleepers to these day centres and benefit payments should be suspended for offenders. All charities or organisations involved in homelessness should be merged to these day centres, which must operate on a voluntary basis, with a skeleton paid staff. Soup runs should be run in these day centres premises. Otherwise it will be like running the hare and hunting the hound.

(3)The mayor should put a task force to find and free the 100,000 unoccupied houses in London and make it available to the outreach organisations, which will have to use their resources and budget in refurbishing and maintaining these houses into affordable and cost effective homes. They should stop the hostel business and help from wasting the housing benefit budget. They should engage homeless people in painting and decorating their own flats or houses, involving people to have a sense of belonging and responsibility.

(4) More temporary shelters like the shelter from storm model should be encouraged rather than wasting money in hostel accommodations. Here the media would have a very important role to inform and manage the public opinion. More emphasis should be laid on the volunteering side than the charity misconception. Volunteering and charity are quite often mixed up like speed and rush. The charity commission should be more vigilant in regulating some obscure charities.

(5) A national debate should be launched to put a digestion charge on food and beverages. It is a multi-million or even billion worth industry. People of decent and good heart will agree to bring their contribution to the less fortunate. They will have a thought for every single needy person,everytime they spend their single penny on food and beverages in Hotels, Restaurants,Pubs, Bars,Cafes.Even the tourists will contribute to the less fortunate folklore. The percentage can be agreed after consultation and acceptance of the idea and should not affect the trade in any circumstances. This extras revenue would be used to finance all the projects above.

(6)The home office should ask the consulates, embassies and the media to foreign countries to inform by way of leaflets and adverts about the difficult conditions prevailing in Britain. Finally politicians should find a national consensus, to make deep reforms in the education,health,and benefit systems to save the country from the storm of the social upheaval. Homeless is the barometer showing the social pressure. The storm is yet to come.

Radio 5 interview

Victoria Derbyshire interviewed me for BBC Radio 5:

vice and virtue

We went straight to Terminal one, where Richard knew every nook and cranny. He took a blanket from his bag and made himself comfortable on one of the long metal benches. I sat beside him, nervous and uncertain as I sensed the stares of the businessmen, families and backpackers around me. We were an eyesore. By now Richard was too drunk to hold a conversation. He gave me his Bible to read and dozed off.

Still scared and traumatized by the events of the past few days and the busy nature of the airport, I stayed where I was and spent some time just staring at my new friend and trying to work out what was going on in his mind. Richard was such a lovely person, lost in the grip of alcoholism, with so much agony locked up inside him. How could such a good soul, who had been rejected by everyone close to him, still believe in God? It was fascinating and disturbing at the same time.

As the minutes passed I remained petrified that someone would notice us. I did not want to break the law at any cost. We were trespassing in a restricted area. We were tramps. I picked up my bag and followed the signs to Terminal three.

My new rest area was more spacious and I felt I could be more discreet there. The Bible remained nestled in my hands but I wasn't reading a word. I was thinking about my cowardliness and the way I had betrayed a new friends' trust. There was something deeper that was bothering me, too. Richard wasn't my first encounter with an alcoholic and meeting him had dredged up some painful memories. 

In March 2005 I was working as a health care assistant in the acute medical unit at a hospital in north London. One day, a middle-aged bloke with a strong northern accent was admitted to our ward. He had been found passed out on the street and brought to the hospital by the ambulance service. He was suffering from sirosis, an alcohol-related liver disease. He was verbally and physically abusive and spent much of his stay spitting at or fighting with staff. His only words were swear words. He turned the entire ward into a place of chaos and disorder. One night he was so out-of-control that he was sectioned for the next twenty-four hours. His name was Mark. He was divorced and he hadn't seen his now twelve-year-old son for a decade.

Mark's behavior stemmed from the fact that he was having withdrawal symptoms from alcohol and even the tranquilizers he'd been given were doing little to calm him down. Everyone else on the ward was terrified of him.

After two days, a doctor came to see him. This man looked through through Mark's medical notes and spoke to the nurse in charge of the ward. He asked her to double Mark's dose of drugs. I knew that would be enough to prompt some serious consequences. The man became a baby in his bed. He was more sedate, yet that came from being barely conscious. He was dribbling and incontinent. Three days later he was free from his pain and his addiction forever.

It was this memory that was haunting me as I thought about Richard's future. Medical negligence is a controversial and grey area. Had Mark really been such a liability, such a hopeless case that his survival was pointless? Did the staff at the hospital think he was a waste of taxpayers' money. Did they simply think he no longer belonged? He merely existed and his life at that time was a hideous existance. Was it then kinder to let him go? All these questions were making me sick.

The thing about alcohol is that it is legal and it is a multibillion dollar industry. It provides employment to people, from grape pickers and bar tenders to corporate managing directors and advertising firms. Mark's existence even gave me some extra overtime as I helped look after him in his special unit away from the other patients. How much should we judge those who become addicted to alcohol when there are others who make money from fuelling their addiction?   

As for Richard, I never saw him again and I have no idea what happened to him. Later that night, feeling sad and broken, I went outside to get some fresh air. I hiked through the dark night and tried not to think about everything I was going through. On and on I walked in an attempt to tire myself out. I reached Kingston by early dawn, when I realized it was the third of April, my birthday. I had just spent half a century on earth.

food for thought

One Thursday, when the sky was clear and blue, I decided to sit down in the blotchy sunshine outside the day centre. Timid rays were peeping through the clouds, like a shy bride waiting to make her appearance down the aisle. The street was busy but I drowned myself in my own thoughts, blotting out the sounds of the hurried crowds. I almost didn't notice when a tall, handsome guy came and sat next to me. Probably in his twenties, he appeared battered, despite his good looks, with a fluffy beard and large red eyes. 

"You're new round here, aren't you?" said the man, who told me his name was Richard. "How long have you been sleeping rough?". 

"It's my third week," I said.

"Not too long then, I've lost count of how long it's been for me," he smiled. "Do you want some weed?".

I told him the truth. That I had never been into drugs and that I didn't think now would be a good time so start, what with having no money and all. I told him I didn't drink, either.

"So what the fuck are you here for?" he asked.

At this point I could have dismissed him as an aggressive idiot. He was obviously an addict himself and I didn't like the way his wide eyes were staring at me. Yet there was something about his character that made me warm to him. Could he perhaps become my first homeless friend?

"It's a long story," I said. "I'm really not in the mood to talk about it right now.

He nodded and went silent for a moment. Then came a cheeky smile and he muttered something about the sunshine. I smiled back.

"Do you have a spare twenty pence?" He asked. 

I laughed. No chance.

"So how do you get by for food in the evenings?" 

We chatted about begging and my ability to charm the Asian shop keepers. He gave me another sly look.

"Follow me," he said. "I know where we can get hot food for free tonight."

We travelled together on the bendy bus to Stratford. It was the number 25 and as usual I slipped on without a ticket. Close up, I could smell the familiar aroma of cider on his breath. Richard told me he became homeless after he dropped out of University. Somehow he ended up losing his girlfriend and losing touch with his family. He was a heavy drug and alcohol user. I'm not sure which part of his story came first. He told me he believed in God and believed that it would soon be his time to go to heaven.

"Life is a bunch of time measures in seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years, decades and centuries," he said. "It is just time, nothing more."

"So you like to think you are living your 'time' rather than your 'life'?" I asked.

"Kind of," he shrugged. "Life is just a slow version of suicide. Every day you get a little closer to death. What does it matter if I die today or in a hundred years?"

"You are a sad soul," I said. Richard gave me another winning smile. "God is the only person who hasn't let me down."

At this point our bus reached Stratford. Richard jumped off and immediately started begging for twenty pence pieces. He told me this was his favourite amount.

"It's much easier to get 20p from five people than a whole pound from just one. People are often happy to get rid of their change"

I told him I never begged for money.

"Well you don't need money, mate. I do."

Richard was a heroin addict. He'd been out of rehab for three weeks and was now a regular user of Methadone, a heroin substitute he topped up with cider to get a hit. As well as being a beggar, he was a frequent shoplifter. But not tonight.

Our final destination was a Sikh temple in west London. It was impressive from the outside, but it was the inside that I adored most, a mass of vivid colours. Women draped in reams of sparkling material and men sporting elegant turbans in every shape and color. People from a huge range of backgrounds, all looking wealthy in their religious costumes. Holy chanting danced through the building. The floor was immaculate. Gleaming white tiles shone beneath strips of bright, embroidered carpets. Richard, the devout Christian, appeared to know everything about Sikhism. He told me to take off my shoes and to take an orange scarf and a turban from a pile at the entrance. Wearing our new clothes, we made our way into the kitchen, where an army of devoted volunteers was serving steaming hot meals on stainless steel plates. There was roti, cauliflower and potato curry. There was yoghurt and rice pudding. We scuttled off into a corner and Richard asked me to thank the Lord for our food. I felt surprised, confused and uncomfortable. Richard took the lead.

"Thank you oh Lord for this pleasant day and the great conversations we had. Thank you for the food you are providing for us this evening. Every grain has your name on it. May even the world's most unfortunate soul enjoy at least one meal every day. In the name of Jesus, Amen." I added a long "Ahhhhhhmeeeen."

After we had finished our sacred meal I asked Richard how he felt about taking food from the Sikh community, when he as such a devout Christian.

"The sheep always follows the Shepherd and the mouth speaks what the heard holds in abundance," he replied.

I kept quiet, feeling like I had committed a double blasphemy. I am not a believer, yet I had just joined in Christian prayers whilst sitting in a Sikh temple. Neither Saint Peter nor Guru Nanak would be proud of me, I thought.  If Richard is preparing for his swift journey to heaven then surely I am opening the door to hell.

We finished our food, washed our hands and left the building. Richard found some cider at a nearby off licence.

"Where, next?" I asked.

"Heathrow Airport."