Kids play with skulls, bones in graveyard

Nellore, July 3: Street cricket is a familiar sight, with kids using planks for bats and tennis balls. But impoverished children living near Bodigadithota graveyard in Nellore play the game with skulls and bones, a ghastly reminder of how society has let them down.

The skulls double up as balls, and the bones are both the bats and the wickets for the kids who cannot afford to buy even the basic cricketing equipment.

But the children are not fazed. Having grown up near the graveyard, they are used to the sight of dead bodies and bones. Their parents have raised thatched huts atop some of the bigger tombs, saving the trouble of having a flooring.

In fact Sairam, 12, picked up a skull which had a zigzag pattern and remarked, “This fellow died in an accident... see the stitches.”

There are more than 1,000 people living in makeshift thatched houses and at least 200 of them are children. Most of them are rag pickers and none goes to school.

Asked about this, Mr Mathyakumar, a resident, said they cannot afford school for their children, who can earn up to Rs 50 a day. Some parents feel the children need an education, but there are no schools nearby. Interestingly, the Rajiv Vidya Mission and the government’s labour department which conduct Badibata — return to school — programmes to enroll dropouts every year have never visited the area, probably under the assumption that it is a graveyard.

The Nellore Municipal Corporation dumps garbage close to the cemetery, and the children pick the trash for anything valuable.

Some of the residents have votes, and they are ready to move away from the graveyard provided they are given house sites.

“We have made several representations but no one is bothered. They don’t even care about keeping the graveyard clean except during Sankranthi when people turn up to offer prayers to the dead,” Mr Subbaiah said.