Here's something I read about beggars. Don't get shocked. This is how it is in India. I don't know much about this issue in the Western countries, but, this is reality.

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Beggars
Shireen Wahid

I was starting to regret my spontaneous decision to go clothes shopping with Mum on a Saturday when we didn't have a driver. Not that I mind taking a taxi. It was the suffocating heat and smells of the city that were so overwhelming, they were almost tangible, that I had trouble with. The thought of having to wear clothes everyone had seen a million times at Friday night's party seemed less devastating to my sense of being, than spending an afternoon like this shopping for clothes. Both Mum and I exchanged tired looks as the taxi stopped at the lights on B. Desai Road, and (just our luck) right next to a waiting beggar.

"Ma'am," he began in perfect English, "I guess you can call me a beggar. But I'm a B.Com. student; I'm an educated man. I had an accident and I need an operation for my foot, so please, anything you can give me will be much appreciated. Even if it's just your prayers."

And when I turned to look outside Mum's window, I barely saw the dirty, torn clothes, unkempt beard and the mutilated foot. Because in his eyes I saw someone who was smart and proud, whom I knew loathed the humiliation of approaching total strangers and begging for money. And then utter incomprehension flooded through me. How can this be? How can a smart, educated man end up on the streets with nothing? How can a country allow this to happen? Angry tears stung my eyes as I fumbled in my shopping bags for my purse. But Mum had already beaten me too it, and handed the beggar a 50 rupee note. He took the money, his eyes goggling with astonishment.

"Thank you, ma'am," he whispered, and then, looking up to the sky, he stepped back onto the curb, unashamedly wiping the streaming tears from his cheeks. The gratitude in his eyes, in his tears, was almost too much for me to bear. It was 50 rupees - 2 Australian dollars - to us, nothing! Yet, what a difference it had made to this man. The lights changed and we drove away, both Mum and myself completely different people to what we were when we pulled up.

But it didn't end there; for in my quest to find this one perfect top I had seen almost a month ago, we found ourselves, once again pulled up at the same intersection. The same beggar approached us, and opened his mouth to speak before recognition flooded his face. He smiled at Mum and stepped back, leaning on his walking stick.

"Second round?" he asked, and my mum nodded. He bent down a little and looked into the taxi, seeing me on the other side. "Buy her something nice," he told my mum. "She reminds me of my daughter."

The next day, I was recounting the above incident to one of my friends, Krishna, on the phone, and he told me about a similar one. He and a friend were riding their bikes, when Krishna's spokes broke. The two boys stopped, in front of a beggar, trying to work out how to fix Krishna's wheel. The beggar approached them and, also speaking in perfect English, asked what was wrong. When they told him, he took the bandage off from around his leg and used it to fix Krishna's bike.

And as I kept talking to family members, friends, people I met at Dad's functions, many more stories came to light. My brother saw some obviously wealthy people giving a loaf of bread to a beggar. What the wealthy people didn't see, was that after they drove off, the beggar broke the bread in half, and fed it to the birds.

All these stories struck me dumb. How much all of us have in comparison, and yet how unwilling we are to share what we have with others.

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Shireen Wahid lives in Mumbai, India

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Well, Mumbai is the equivalent of New York City. You can say that, at least by Indian standards. There are poor people everywhere. There are slums, full of disease and death. I am a Catholic. I must say that among all this suffering and poverty, there is an opportunity to love. Just like Mother Teresa.

Anyway, that's all for today. Mail me for your views and thanks for reading.

Basil Diengdoh

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