Gurugramwale: His safety talisman

A rag picker’s shield from life’s atrocities

Everyone wants to keep off evil spells at bay. Waste collector Ajay Balmiki depends on a personalised talisman for protection.

Waste collector Ajay Balmiki depends on a personalised talisman for protection. (HT Photo)

While hauling away the garbage in Gurugram’s main bus station one afternoon, the 26-year-old gentleman points to the taveez he is wearing around his neck. “I got it from our baba-ji.... our entire family believes in him, he lives in the mountains and visited our house in Gurgaon only once.”

That was 20 years ago and Mr Balmiki was a child then. His parents tied the mystic’s amulet around his neck.

The charm quickly made a difference, he says.

“I stopped feeling scared.”

Earlier he would have nightmares of ghosts and murders but “those scenes faded and finally disappeared.”

Gently resting a finger on the taveez, Mr Balmiki closes his eyes and murmurs a prayer, saying, “I will not lie, sometimes I still feel fearful and get scared... and then this taveez appears to be without any power.”

A moment later he looks sheepish, and a little guilty, asserting, “I still believe in the taveez and in our baba-ji.” He talks of life’s everyday hardships and how he instinctively reaches out to the taveez for “tasalli (consolation).”

Suddenly, Mr Balmiki’s employer, a much younger man lounging in a shop nearby, shouts at him to stop chatting and hurry up with the job.