“I never knew what it means to have a home. Father did not have any property and he and many of his friends settled where they could find some empty land. They weaved baskets, raised pigs and made temporary huts with whatever was available from the forest. Maybe that was the nature of our community to move from place to place. But today, I think it is because we are thought of as lesser beings than other people. And because no one went to school, poverty stayed with us and we could never get out of it. After being vacated from the land we were living in, we have now moved to this area by the road and I am worried that a time will come soon when we will be told to leave again. I can live anywhere because I have understood that this is how life is and will be, but my children are young and they do not understand. But no one sees our plight, we are right here, living at the road where people pass us by. It is like we are invisible to them.” (Joginder Marik, Birpur, Saptari)

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