A date at Laie’s cafe in Barcelona excites her. “The best cafe-bookstore in Barcelona,” she says. Emin Sheikh. The place reminds him of the Café Barcelona he founded in Mumbai (India) for street kids like himself. From Little to Sheikh they called him a garbage man. The book he wrote about his life brought him to the Catalan capital these days. He assures that Barcelona, a city he always dreamed of visiting, helped him open his eyes.
Before you begin, write your name here to spell it correctly.
That’s interesting. No one has ever said Amen to me before. They called me garbage boy. Nobody wanted to touch me: I was dirty, I smelled so bad…
Did you know your family?
Yes, they got married in a marriage of logic without knowing each other. He lived in a factory. She was 17 years old. Honeymoon was at the factory. A year later, I was born, followed by my two sisters. We lived in very bad conditions in a hut.
What happened then? Did they leave you?
No. At the age of five, he worked on the street for 10 hours selling tea for two cents. People pushed me, shot me… One day, all my glasses were broken. I was so scared… my mother punished me with hot coals on my feet, my stepfather beat me with bamboo or belt. I was so scared of everyone and ran to the police station. There were other children there eating from the garbage.
Five years old left on the street?
Yes, I cried a lot that night. A man raped me. I don’t understand why he did this. He used to do this to me every night. I had a hard time protecting myself. He beat me, gave me drugs to put me to sleep… Look, I don’t feel sorry for bad people. There are millions of children like me every day.
But his luck has changed.
One day the magic happened. You don’t believe in magic in Europe because you have everything, but I do. I met my sister again. They wanted to sell her as a sex slave, but a taxi driver helped her escape. The next morning an angel came to see me: Sister Seraphine. “How are you dear?” she said. I threw a stone at him, I said, ‘either you go or I will kill you’. I didn’t trust anyone, I didn’t believe anyone could love me. In time she took me to an orphanage run by Catalan Jesuits. You should be proud of where you live.
How to fight distrust of street children?
You don’t trust because no one has done anything for you. Freedom is the only option. I once ran away from the orphanage until I realized that it was the only place where everything could change. But the problem is with the parents, not the children. They give birth to them, but they forget their responsibilities. You can’t have children if you don’t know how to be with him. We treat children like a flower in our garden, but we must teach them to grow. If not, the garden turns into a forest.
Did he go to school in the orphanage?
Yes, the orphanage changed my world. The teacher called me ‘donkey’, I was the eldest but I had never been to school. But for me education is equality and humanity. Those who have money become educated, the rest become their slaves. People go to the Moon, to Mars… but we don’t care if there are people on the street who don’t have enough food.
Does your child know your story?
Yes, and very proud. He spent a few days in the orphanage to see how his father lived.
There has been a drastic change…
Yes, my sister is a nurse, she works at Doctors Without Borders. I was a taxi driver, I fell into the drug world, I went back to the street… but the people at the orphanage found me a job. I was with a painter from Bombay, I was his contact person. I met people from all over the world with him. It was the first time they asked me my name, they hugged me… This is how I met many Catalans and in 2003 my boss gave me a ticket to my dream Barcelona.
What did you think of the city?
You don’t know the value of what you have. Here I discovered that there is a love of family, that I have rights. I went to see clients I met in India. They greeted me with a table full of food. I remember going to sit on the floor and they said to me ‘no, no, sit on the chair with everybody.
Returning to India could not be easy.
My boss gave me freedom. I was a tour guide and met a lot of people. The Catalans I’ve met all this time helped me write my book and I set up my cafe.
How does the project work?
We welcome street children over the age of 18. 80% comes from the orphanage, 20% comes from the barracks. Everyone wants to host children, NGOs are a business… but the problem is when these kids grow up. We are the first cafe in India where everyone has free water… I fired more than 20 customers who treated men like slaves. Seven kids even got into college.