It’s just eight in the morning and I hear a door bell. A well-dressed boy gives me a paper and starts to tell his sad tale. “I am good at studies, I have no one to pay for my education….I did not wait for him to complete. I hear different versions of such stories daily.
I gave him 10 rupees.” He has a list of donors and wants my name to be added in it. I can see a bundle of Indian currency in several denominations in his hand. These people don’t take one rupee or two rupee.
I am sure the boy has already earned around 150 rupees. My day’s earning is -10 rupees. I have to toil for next 9 hours to make 300 rupees. By that time the boy will make around 1000 rupees.
Now why I did I give the money? I didn’t want to spoil my day through remorse. And I don’t have the strength to say a harsh and big ‘NO’!!!
The boy knows this. Not this boy but a whole lot of people know this. They have glorified begging and have made it a profession. It is also a burgeoning industry. They employ unique marketing techniques like religion, flood, drought, education, ailing husband…. Then there are elderly people who come with all sort of excuses.
After each incident, I decide this is the last time I am going to give alms to these covert beggars. But I continue to give. Even after writing this blog, I am sure I will give alms.
Wait another door bell!!
Not again!! This time it is for a school of underprivileged. Again I gave 10 rupees. My neighbor is smart, he send his kid to say nobody is here. My day’s earning is -20/-.