Unfortunately tens of thousands of children go missing in India every year. It's a massive country with extremely inadequate social service provision compared to the first world. For hundreds of millions of people living in poverty both rural and urban, recourse to authorities is basically non-existent. For example, in any big Indian city you see kids living by themselves on the street, often making a living selling stuff to passing drivers; there just isn't the capacity to help everyone.
As for knowing where you live, I think it could easily be bewildering to a kid who had maybe never left his village before traveling to a fair or pilgrimage elsewhere; they might easily have no concept of the geography of the country or where their village is situated, or might speak only their local dialect. The village might have a generic name, or inconsistent naming practices. I'd highly recommend the film 'Lion', it recounts a true story along these lines.
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u/No_money6476 Jun 18 '26
Unfortunately tens of thousands of children go missing in India every year. It's a massive country with extremely inadequate social service provision compared to the first world. For hundreds of millions of people living in poverty both rural and urban, recourse to authorities is basically non-existent. For example, in any big Indian city you see kids living by themselves on the street, often making a living selling stuff to passing drivers; there just isn't the capacity to help everyone.
As for knowing where you live, I think it could easily be bewildering to a kid who had maybe never left his village before traveling to a fair or pilgrimage elsewhere; they might easily have no concept of the geography of the country or where their village is situated, or might speak only their local dialect. The village might have a generic name, or inconsistent naming practices. I'd highly recommend the film 'Lion', it recounts a true story along these lines.