Chapter 2 — Children at Work

Chapter 2 of NCERT Class 8 English (It So Happened), "Children at Work", follows eleven-year-old Velu, who runs away from his village because his father beats him and spends all the family earnings on drink. Arriving at Chennai Central on the Kanyakumari Express with no ticket and almost no food, Velu meets Jaya, a ragpicker girl his own age. She feeds him from garbage outside a wedding hall and leads him to her shanty near Buckingham Canal in Triplicane. The story ends with Jaya handing Velu a sack and stick, recruiting him into ragpicking — collecting paper, plastic and glass to sell to a dealer named Jam Bazaar Jaggu.

Velu, an eleven-year-old boy, escapes his village after enduring repeated beatings from his father, who steals the family's wages for alcohol. He boards the Kanyakumari Express to Chennai without a ticket, surviving on peanuts and jaggery for two days. At Chennai Central, a sharp-tongued girl named Jaya, who earns her living picking rags, spots him and offers to find food. She leads him through the city's chaotic traffic, feeds him discarded food — a banana and a vada — from a garbage bin behind a wedding hall, then takes him to her makeshift hut near Buckingham Canal in Triplicane. Jaya explains that she is a ragpicker who collects paper, plastic and glass from rubbish bins to sell to Jam Bazaar Jaggu, who resells the material to a factory. Reluctantly, Velu agrees to join her, hoping to find better work later. The story highlights the harsh reality of child labour and the survival instincts of street children.

1. 01Velu, aged eleven, runs away from home because his father beats him and takes all the money Velu and his sisters earn to spend on drink.
2. 02He travels from Kanur to Chennai on the Kanyakumari Express without a ticket, surviving on peanuts and jaggery, and the ticket collector never checks the unreserved compartment.
3. 03At Chennai Central, Jaya — a ragpicker girl around Velu's age — approaches him while collecting dirty plastic cups from the platform floor.
4. 04Jaya feeds Velu a squashy banana and a vada picked from a garbage bin overflowing with rubbish behind a wedding hall called Sri Rajarajeshwari Prasanna Kalyana Mandapam.
5. 05The two walk to Triplicane, where Jaya lives in a hut beside Buckingham Canal; her hut is built from metal sheets, tyres, bricks, wood and plastic.
6. 06Jaya explains that ragpickers collect paper, plastic and glass from rubbish bins and sell the material to Jam Bazaar Jaggu, who in turn sells it to a factory.
7. 07Velu reluctantly accepts a sack and stick from Jaya and decides to try ragpicking for now, hoping eventually to find a better job.