The security guard who wants to secure the future of slum kids

DEHRADUN: It's that twilight hour when dusk hasn't disappeared and darkness hasn't yet descended. Roughly around this time each day, the space outside an Allahabad Bank ATM in the Majra area of Dehradun gets rapidly filled up with children of all ages (there are a few adults too) who come clutching their notebooks, faces beaming in anticipation. Within seconds, the area is converted into an impromptu classroom, presided over by the man in charge of the ATM – security guard Bijender Singh.His erect bearing gives away his past as a former Armyman. But for the next two hours, he dons the hat of a teacher, gently prodding a seven-year-old to recite the alphabet, chiding a teenager for not having written a sentence legibly, all the while keeping an eye on the ATM kiosk whose neon signage gives out just enough light for the group to study.
Singh says that it has now become his junoon (passion) to ensure that “no rag picker child in Dehradun is deprived of an education.” “I believe there are about 40% of such children in the city who are not studying. But I will soon get them to read and write,” he says with the quiet conviction of a soldier who has his eyes set on his mission.
Singh’s tryst with teaching came about after a visit to Amritsar almost 15 years ago. "Outside the Golden temple, I saw some children searching for food in a garbage dump. It broke my heart to see them. I decided then that I must do something which can help these children have a better future," he recalls. Even though he started teaching a few children soon after his Amritsar visit, Singh says that it was after retiring from the Army – he served in the Garhwal Rifles -- in 2008, he decided to utilise more of his time for his passion. “After retirement, I got a job as a security guard in a school hostel where I used to be in the night shift. I utilised the mornings to teach children.” Soon, he started going to more places in the city -- anywhere, as he puts it, “where there were children to be taught.” “Between seven and two in the afternoon before I start work at the ATM, I go to six places -- Haridwar Bypass, Lakhibagh, Jakhan, Kargi Chowk, Asian School campus and Seemadwar Basti where I teach children,” says the man who spends over half of his earnings on his teaching initiatives.
With not enough time to devote to his family -- his wife and two children -- Singh candidly admits that a few years ago, his wife left him and went to her parents’ place. “She told me to stop wasting my time with rag pickers’ children but I told her I can’t do this. Now, she is reconciled and accepts the fact that this is my life’s mission.”
Singh’s work has been noticed by many people who have come forward to help. Allahabad Bank, his employer, besides providing space for him outside the ATM to conduct classes, has also sponsored schoolbags for the kids. But Singh says he is reluctant to ask anybody for help. “I feel that these are my own children and I am responsible for them. Even if one of them falls ill, their parents call me and I take them to the hospital. It gives me joy and peace to help them. That is my greatest reward.”