Every now and then we come across the street children begging for some money. Typically these kids will go to car drivers and knock on the windows and beg for some food or money. The sheer expression on their face will make you really feel pity about them and specially if your kids are in the car, you will automatically compare their situation with your kids. My daughter when she was about 4-5 years old, started really understanding the situations these kids are into and sometimes, when she used to run around the street or busy shopping malls, we used to scare her telling that someone will abduct her and will force her to beg at signals.
Some time back a volunteer from CRY came to our residence. Some of the stories he told me about the way these kids land into the streets were really horrifying. It seems that the younger ones (1-2 years old) are sedated so heavily that they are always sleeping. The women carrying them don’t feed them properly and typically these kids die by the time they are 3 years old due to drugs. Then there are some older ones, 4-5 years onwards, who are a little bit better off as they beg independently. But then even their collection is looted by the senior beggars and poor kids end up in malnutrition, unhygienic state. They do not get chance to bath, not enough clothes to wear and so on…
But life still goes on. It makes these kids so blunt to the situation and they get so used to it that between the two red signals they play on the road dividers. So you see something like this… The small kid is playing with the other kids or is having a little fight with them over something. You are trying to rush in only to find out that the signal has turned red just two vehicles before you. You have no option to jump the signal and have to stop. Suddenly the kids who were playful few seconds back, come to your window and make such a face that most of the greatest actors would leave their business and start up another business. Yesterday also the same thing happened to me. The kid was actually throwing something really dirty below the car and I was getting angry because it looked like he was going to make the car dirty. The windows were rolled up so I knocked on the glass and in a second, the kid was making a begging face.
I am always in two minds about the beggars, especially the younger and valid lot. If you give them money that is like promoting begging. If you do not, you are not really sensitive to the poor persons situation. To give or not to give becomes a question and I end up not giving money cos, I feel the physically fit should struggle more to work and earn money. At the same time being a beggar is not really being lazy, you have to work hard to earn that money. It is also a lot of pain and suffering. You can not take bath for days even if you earn enough by begging. You have to stand on the road and fill the pollution inside your body to earn your livelihood. Also there is no guaranteed income. You have to keep searching places where you will get more money and then there is competition. Jokes apart but this is really serious business. Lot of people tell me that there is lot of money in begging. Many of them earn more than the middle-class salaried person. But then my question is, will you change your business and become a beggar if you have a choice?
I think I certainly will not; just for the sake of my self esteem. But does the situation of these beggars really has any place for self esteem, what drives one into this business? I wonder…
So the question is, should we give these people any alms or not?
P.S. I am still not somehow inclined to see the movie Traffic Signal by Madhur Bhandarkar. Lot of people tell me it is a good movie but still…