By: Eureka Subedi
Did you know that in the world there are 250,000 homeless people that have a mental disability*? In the book the Bridge Home by Padma Venkatraman, two sisters Viji and Ruukku make an escape from their abusive father and into the busy streets of India. The two sisters have many ups and downs in the story but always push through it, throughout their journey, they meet new people who later turn into friends then into a family especially with Ruukku being mentally disabled having people that support her was very important. Although they are disrespected by many people there are a few kind souls along the way. After managing to escape, the girls first have a hard time getting into the bus to leave their home city, but once they get off the bus, the bus driver chases them until he grabs Viji by the arm, Ruukku was quick to rescue her sister by throwing her wooden doll at him. Thanks to Ruukku’s idea she was able to help her sister get free from the man’s grasp. After the bus driver incident, the two sisters find a tea shop where they spent the little money they had on a cup of tea, but accidentally the sisters drop the cup which made them work to pay for the cup since they didn’t have enough money to pay for it right away. Finally, after working to pay off the cup, the two sisters once again return to the streets where they meet a dog which they named Kutti. After Ruukku manages to persuade Viji to keep the dog, Kutti, they come across two bridges, one new bridge and the other an abandoned bridge. They explore the abandoned bridge and it looked like someone had been living there, just as they were deciding if they were going to stay or not a boy who looked nine years old rushes over and tells them that his boss will be here soon and that he is really scary. Viji argues with the boy until they meet his boss, Arul, who lets the sisters stay with them. After a few days, the new friends go to places such as a landfill site to find things that are valuable enough for the martman to buy. After hours of digging in trash, the friends go to the beach where Ruukku sells the beaded necklaces she made to earn money. A few days later after they came back to the bridge from the landfill site, the martman finds where they live and chases them off of the bridge, the only home they ever knew after fleeing their old apartment. Without knowing where to go the friends come across a graveyard which soon becomes their new home. The theme of this story is that surviving on the streets is not easy, especially with a mental disability so you should respect those who do.
The author Padma Venkatraman proves the theme of the book by her descriptive words about how much trouble the kids go through in order to survive the harsh problems the world throws at them. After living on the streets for days Muthu and Arul show how they make a living so that they can survive on their own. Muthu and Arul take the two sisters to their job at a landfill site and show them what to do. “If I don’t work here and earn money, we’ll have to run right back to Appa”(Venkatraman 58). Before getting started with their job Ruukku complains about the nauseous smell coming from the “Himalayas of Rubbish”(Venkatraman 57). Even though the kids didn’t want to work there, Viji admits that in order to not go back to their abusive father she is going to have to work through the mountains of trash. The kids dig through trash all day trying to find glass and plastic since it’s what gets paid most just so that they have something to eat. This quote is one of the many examples of how it’s not easy surviving on the streets. In addition to digging through trash as a job, the kids even had to eat out of the trash “Here comes our feast”(Venkatraman 98). Arul and Muthu claimed that they were invited to a wedding and brought the girls with them, the wedding that they were invited to wasn’t what they thought the wedding turned out to be. At the wedding reservation trashcan where the leftover food of the people invited to the wedding didn’t eat. The kids eat out of the trash while trying to forget that these were people’s overs and that they were in the trash. Even though they were eating out of the trash the kids tried to be positive that they even got to eat and that our meals are so delicious that uninvited guests always visit (Venkatraman 99). I think that this is very evident that surviving on the streets is not easy, even though they tried to think positively and be grateful that they got to eat even more and have a feast. Their idea of trying to think positively didn’t really help but the kids pushed through the pain of eating out of the trash all because they wanted to survive the harsh challenges the world was giving them.
Padma Venkatraman demonstrates that when you are homeless you don’t get a lot of respect so you should respect the people who do. Through the two sisters, the siblings don’t get a lot of respect but thankfully, there were some people who respected the girls’ opinions and treated them with kindness and respect instead of treating them like they were some kind of animals. One of these few people includes the tea shop auntie, a woman who lost her daughter, quickly becoming a mother figure to the sisters in their new life. “Ran away” (Venkatraman 22). When buying tea the girls dropped the teacup and said that they would work for it. With the teashop uncle’s permission the girls went to help his wife, the teashop auntie, a woman in a grey saree in the kitchen, treats the girls by not judging them when Viji admits that they are runaways. Most of the time when someone finds out that someone is a runaway they know that they would now be homeless they would judge them, and disrespect them in any way. However, that wasn’t the case with the tea shop auntie. She treated the girls with respect, love, care and became a mother figure to them in their journey, she treated them like her own daughters whom she lost. Although the teashop auntie was very respectful and mother-like to the girls, she wasn’t the only person who had respect for them. Praba’s mom, a woman the girls met while walking through a rich neighborhood, tries to buy the kid’s dog Kutti from them since her daughter Praba wanted him. When Viji declines the offer constantly the woman complies and respects their choice of not selling Kutti. “I know you said he wasn’t for sale, but Praba’s taken a liking to him…Would you consider parting with him for 2,000 rupees?” (Venkatraman 122). Despite Viji’s decline in selling Kutti the mom tried to bribe them with money. Even though she tries to bribe them you can still hear the kindness and respect in her voice as if she was talking to Viji in real life. With Viji’s no again she asks if she can get him food, in this scene you can see that although she doesn’t get the dog she still would like to do something nice for Kutti. “Praba’s mom had also given us a raincoat” (Venkatraman 124). Besides not getting what she wants she still gives the kids a raincoat and respects their decision and in fact decides to care for them and give them a raincoat but furthermore, she also gives the children old clothes so that they would have new clothes to wear for Diwali. Because the teashop auntie’s and Praba’s mom respect and care for Ruukku and Viji, the two girls don’t have to worry about being wet during the rainy seasons but also have people they can go to for support.
The author displays that having a mental disability is a struggle especially if you live on the streets. In the book, Ruukku is judged by her mental disability and is considered less than others. However, when the two sisters run away Viji is surprised at how much her sister is capable of. Throughout the story, Viji shows that she cares about her sister and puts her needs and happiness above everything else. Ruukku proves that she is capable of many things and everything goes well until Ruuku gets really ill towards the end of the book. Although she gets sick, her disability plays a very big part in the story and changes several outcomes in the book such as when she got the idea of selling her beaded necklaces. “What a great idea Ruukku! We could sell your necklaces! (Venkatraman 72). While, Viji, Muthu and Ruukku were at the beach, simultaneously, Arul was selling the trash they found to the mart man. During their time at the beach, Ruukku wanted a green balloon she saw in one of the street stands. Viji and Muthu tried to explain that when you buy something you have to give them money and that they don’t have enough money to buy the balloon. For that reason, Ruukku got an idea of selling the beaded necklaces she makes. The kids start to sell the necklaces and earn a lot of money, as a result of Ruukku’s idea by the time Arul got back they had made a small fortune that they were able to buy all their favorite foods and the green balloon for Ruukku. Without a doubt, if Ruukku didn’t come up with the idea of selling her beaded necklaces then the four kids would probably not have had enough money to eat dinner. This is only one of the many ways Ruukku’s ideas impacted the story, another example is earlier in the book when she helped her sister escape the grasp of the creepy bus driver. “Your arm swung back, and with all your might, you flung your hard wooden doll at him” (Venkatraman 17). After getting off the bus and taking their first step in the city, the bus driver got a hold of Viji’s arm trying to get her to come with him and hurt her. Ruukku couldn’t see her sister getting hurt and with all her courage she hit him with her favorite wooden doll, Marapachi. This scene impressed Viji since Ruukku was able to save her and also shows how often Ruukku is looked down upon. For sure, if Ruukku wasn’t there to rescue her younger sister, the bus driver would have hurt her.
In conclusion, the author Padma Venkatraman demonstrated that it’s not easy to survive on the streets especially with a mental disability so you should respect those who do. She shows this by the two protagonists Viji and Rukku’s daily struggle in order to survive on the streets, and how Viji uses her sister as motivation to keep going. However without the hard-working traits, and the respectful people along the way the two girls would not have made it on the streets and would have had to go back to their abusive father.
- Homeless Mentally Ill Facts.
This was a good book 😀