Mark Delaney

If I had to summarise the Beatitudes, this would be it. Jesus was speaking directly, I’ve come to believe, to a bunch of tired, worn-out, down-and-out, poor people. People a lot like our neighbours.

We’ve spent the last 14 years living in poor neighbourhoods in Delhi. In the last five years we’ve been in Janta Colony. It’s an illegal colony, built on government land in the east of the city. Its illegal status means that it could be bulldozed at any time to make way for a hospital, a bus terminus or even a Commonwealth Games venue! Despite the vulnerability of living in a place that could be gone tomorrow, people like our friends Gulo, Babu and Shaheen and their family continue to flock to Janta Colony from villages surrounding Delhi because they can still earn more in the city than in their village. They can’t afford the 3,000 rupee ($100) a month or so it would cost to rent a place in a legal suburb, so they come to Janta Colony or another of the hundreds of colonies like it.

Janta Colony is now home to about 100,000 people, housed in tiny rooms, many without natural lighting or ventilation. The whole colony sits on about a tenth of a square kilometre. That’s a population density of about one person per square metre! (On Google Earth, Janta Colony is wrongly named as Subash Park, Delhi. Notice the lack of observable streets and blocks compared to the surrounding suburbs.)

So it’s in Janta Colony that we’ve made our home and made friends. We live here to try to understand a little of what life is like for our poor neighbours, the type of people Jesus may well have pronounced the Beatitudes to today. People like Shayra, a widow friend who was thrown out of her shack because she couldn’t afford the rent. People like Kaneez whose baby daughter died a year or so ago, probably of diarrhoea, and whose husband died not long after, probably of TB. Some real faces on the otherwise faceless list of 45,000 people a day who die of preventable diseases.

When our Janta Colony friends face the tough times of life, as they do so much more often than our Australian friends, we try in small ways to respond. We often fail, but our attempts have, we hope, brought at least some good news to some. In a way I suppose, we’re attempting to be the flesh and blood ‘blessing’ which Jesus assures to the poor.

After Kaneez’s husband died, we knew she was almost totally without support. Friends and neighbours, despite their own poverty, would give leftover food each night to feed her and her remaining three kids. She should have been entitled to a widow’s pension from the Delhi Government, but with no bank account, no identity documents and no death certificate, she didn’t have a chance. So, together with other friends, we’ve helped to get the necessary documents together and, after a year of struggle, eventually the pension came through.

But the real heroes are, as Jesus says, the people who, despite adversity, continue to bring peace and hope amidst the despair around them, for little reward or recognition. People like our 13-year-old friend Saba, who despite her own struggles, graciously looks after her younger sister for much of the day. And people like Kallu, who struggled hard to help his neighbours during their colony’s demolition. For such efforts, we the foreigners have articles published in magazines like Target, but Kallu simply got on with it and in return got suspicion and scorn from the very people he was helping.

So for the Shayras, the Kaneezes, the Sabas and the Kallus, here are Jesus’ wonderful words, retold for our friends in Janta Colony:

Jesus stood on the bridge near Janta Colony in East Delhi and said to the masses gathered around:

Blessed are the old women like Shayra, who are ground down by pain and poverty; for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs.
Blessed are the widows like Kaneez, who grieve the loss of their husbands and kids; for they’re the ones who’ll be comforted.
Blessed are the young men like Babu, who work hard without fuss for their family’s survival; for they’re the ones who’ll receive a share of the earth.
Blessed are the girls like Gulo, who are still upset by the violence and suffering they see; for they’re the ones who’ll have their longings satisfied.
Blessed are the big kids like Saba, who could easily be bullies, but instead look after their little bothers and sisters; for they’re the ones who’ll experience mercy themselves.
Blessed are the young women like Shaheen, who stay honest in a corrupt world; for they’re the ones who’ll see God.
Blessed are the young men who step in to stop the teenagers brawling; for they’re the ones who’ll be known as the children of God.
Blessed are the men like Kallu, who help their neighbours while their slum is getting demolished and get blamed for their trouble; for the Kingdom of heaven is theirs.
Blessed are the people like you when you cop slander, abuse and lies because of your stance for me.
Celebrate, laugh in the face of it all, for there is a grand reward waiting for you in the heavens.

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