Excerpts from an article published by The Telegraph on 9th of April 2016 -
How the other half live: why India's slum-dwellers are keen to meet William and Kate
- Gordon Rayner, Chief Reporter, Mumbai
Her home is an 8ft x 8ft room that she shares with her parents and six siblings, so the question slum dweller Saniya Puniya Chauhan wants to ask the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge is perhaps glaringly obvious.
“How can they live in such a big house?” mused 10-year-old Saniya as she prepared for one of the most exciting days of her life when she meets the royal couple in Mumbai.
“How do they communicate?” she went on. “How do they call each other? What kind of clothes do they wear?”
The Duke and Duchess can expect to be bombarded with these and similarly frank questions from some of the world’s poorest children when they arrive in India on Sunday at the start of their seven-day day tour of the country and of Bhutan.
Anmer Hall, the Duke and Duchess’s home in Norfolk, could comfortably be divided into more than 100 typical dwellings in the Baba Sheb Ambedkar Nagar slum, where Saniya lives, meaning the Grade II* listed property would be home to upwards of 500 people, rather than four. They also have a London home at Kensington Palace.
A crude comparison, perhaps, but one which has clearly crossed the minds of Saniya and other pupils at the slum’s Door Step school. Many of them start work at the age of seven gutting fish or scavenging rubbish dumps for £3 a day and drop in to the school in the evenings to learn how to read and write.
The school’s co-founder, Bina Sheth Lashkari, said: “We have shown the children pictures of the Duke and Duchess and where they live. The children know they are going to meet a Prince and Princess and they have asked if they are like the Princes and Princesses in fairy tales. One of the girls asked if the Princess had big hair, like Rapunzel.
“They asked ‘do they need such a big house?’ and ‘how do they call their wife, how do they call their kids?’. They want to know what they eat, what they wear, everything. They are really excited and a bit scared as well - their eyes are so wide!”
(Link to original article - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/09/how-the-other-half-live-why-indias-slum-dwellers-are-keen-to-mee/)
How the other half live: why India's slum-dwellers are keen to meet William and Kate
- Gordon Rayner, Chief Reporter, Mumbai
Her home is an 8ft x 8ft room that she shares with her parents and six siblings, so the question slum dweller Saniya Puniya Chauhan wants to ask the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge is perhaps glaringly obvious.
“How can they live in such a big house?” mused 10-year-old Saniya as she prepared for one of the most exciting days of her life when she meets the royal couple in Mumbai.
“How do they communicate?” she went on. “How do they call each other? What kind of clothes do they wear?”
The Duke and Duchess can expect to be bombarded with these and similarly frank questions from some of the world’s poorest children when they arrive in India on Sunday at the start of their seven-day day tour of the country and of Bhutan.
Anmer Hall, the Duke and Duchess’s home in Norfolk, could comfortably be divided into more than 100 typical dwellings in the Baba Sheb Ambedkar Nagar slum, where Saniya lives, meaning the Grade II* listed property would be home to upwards of 500 people, rather than four. They also have a London home at Kensington Palace.
A crude comparison, perhaps, but one which has clearly crossed the minds of Saniya and other pupils at the slum’s Door Step school. Many of them start work at the age of seven gutting fish or scavenging rubbish dumps for £3 a day and drop in to the school in the evenings to learn how to read and write.
The school’s co-founder, Bina Sheth Lashkari, said: “We have shown the children pictures of the Duke and Duchess and where they live. The children know they are going to meet a Prince and Princess and they have asked if they are like the Princes and Princesses in fairy tales. One of the girls asked if the Princess had big hair, like Rapunzel.
“They asked ‘do they need such a big house?’ and ‘how do they call their wife, how do they call their kids?’. They want to know what they eat, what they wear, everything. They are really excited and a bit scared as well - their eyes are so wide!”
(Link to original article - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/04/09/how-the-other-half-live-why-indias-slum-dwellers-are-keen-to-mee/)
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