World Drug Day: In Malwani, kids as young as five are drug addicts

On June 18, Mumbaikars woke up to a tragedy that killed many after consumption of spurious liquor. Who knew that in just few hours, the death toll would cross the 100 mark.

The moment one walks through the small lanes of Malwani, you experience an eerie silence spread over the slums; kids as young as five busy snorting various kinds of ‘killer’ drugs.

Speaking with iamin, a resident, who is also an active member of social trust ‘Next Generation’ said, “Almost every boy, at the age of 5, that is when he gains at least some kind of social consciousness, gets exposed to the drug abuse business. The parents, who usually do small time labour work for the BMC, have very little or no time to keep a watch, and honestly even when they find out, they don’t work as hard as they should.”

The most common kind of addiction amongst young boys here is the paint thinner that is sold by stationeries mainly for the purpose of colour mixing, oil painting, etc. The Patta area, no 8 gate of Malwani, is famously the adda (meeting point) for these young lads. “You go there at any point of the day and you will see these boys with handkerchiefs stuffed into the thinner bottle, sniffing away in a corner,” said the social worker.

The forest behind the Patta area is where the older drug addicts can be found in action. A young lad, who is a drug addict said, “Everyone does it so do I. Once you start it, it’s difficult to stop. I don’t like to attend lectures at school. Before going to bed, I need to do it once or else I start feeling restless. The urge never stops.”

This habit picked up from an early age has a tremendous impact in the years to come. Ibrahim Sheikh, 54, who is now mostly bed-ridden because of a peculiar cut on his foot, was a binge drinker and drug addict when he was a child. “He got this cut while cleaning a drainage pipe in Bandra and since then the cut heals for 12-15 days on its own and then again starts to open. We don’t know what it is, and he refuses to go the hospital,” said his wife, Salma Sheikh, who had to give up her job as a nurse after Ibrahim’s drug addiction became severe.

Ibrahim cannot eat or do anything else unless he sips down atleast one bottle of desi daaru in the morning. “Allah will take care of me. If I could stop this, I would. But after Garat (a milder version of cocaine) you can’t really stop,” said Ibrahim, who could barely speak as he lay on the bed.

A drug abuser, along with his own, ravages many lives around him. “I agreed to get married to him and that was the only mistake of my life. I do not know what Allah has planned for me. He beats me, his sons; he even slit my hand one day after coming home all doped up. Can you help me? I do not wish to live with him as I have three sons and his income can barely help all of us survive,” said a victim of domestic violence, who has opened a small snack shop outside her house which does not make much money.

These drugs, as claimed by one of the residents get manufactured in the very shanties of this area. “You know who makes them? Ex-workers of chemical laboratories, the men who while working on these chemicals, got addicted. The drug mafias get these kinds of people from all over the country and give them place here and they run the business,” said a member of ‘New Generation’.

The appalling reality of these youngsters does not come as a surprise to the school principals either. “As you sit here in my office, I can without even looking point through the window behind me, at least 10 selling joints of all the 5 kinds of drugs. We know them. We let them free, and we keep mum. It’s not just the parents who are to be blamed. It’s the deceitful man who visits during elections, all smiles, kisses children and waves goodbyes- is who is to be blamed,” said Mohammad Sheikh, trustee of the Holy Star School at Malwani, where most of these addicted kids attend classes.

Even though, more than a 100 people died because of the spurious alchohol, there seems to be no difference in their slacking and addicted lives. This is what drugs can do to a society.  

For the longer version of the report, click here