They were the so-called pavement-dwellers, quite habitual to smoke and dust, accustomed to rain and heat, ever quiet in response to the reproaches by the angry passers-by, unbent while getting canes and slaps from the policemen who collected weekly rent from those ill-fated souls, at the clemencies of weather. Earlier, local musclemen used to take Rs.10 per week from an individual who wanted to have a place to sleep on the pavement, but the local policemen, perhaps, tired of waiting for promotion, or restless because of no other source of income in consequence of the govt.'s stern actions against corruption, had decided to exploit the people who had pavement as their only home.
On this very footpath, there lived a young girl, about eighteen, with her old humpback father. Parvati and her father Jaman Prasad, though mostly called Jamaiya, had accepted the fact that the pavement was their home. In the name of clothes, she had only one worn out sari, that too without a blouse, which, in spite of her best efforts to cover her body, revealed the portions of her breasts, with tiny black nipples protruding under that tightly wrapped sari. Though having biscuit complexion, Parvati's facial features and curves of the waist attracted the people who passed by that pavement hut. The office-goers, waiting for taxis or buses, could not resist themselves from stealing a tantalizing glimpse of her luring body.
