You stop your car at the traffic , or probably you are waiting at the pedestrian crossing when that same dark-skinned, lady having unwashed hair and draped in a torn saree carrying the same infant , always sleeping on her shoulder, either bangs against the window pane or gangs of bare footed children or an old man waving a bunch of papers, (highlighting real big true(?) amounts) come up to you asking for “money” , interrupting your daily business . While to maximum of us it arouses an event of sympathy but most of the times it’s out of irritation, we “help” to get rid of the " nuisance"! It is a day-to-day site to see hundreds of street beggars on road, among which few are complete unreal, which I think can be made out easily , while looking at few , it causes a great feeling of fortune in us, when we start considering ourselves luckier . On one side , there are many beggars who are pacified just with a packet of biscuits or left over jhal muri or chaat you just bought , helping the “genuine” ones always imparts in you ,a feeling of greatness !While on the other side , there are the ones who will refuse unless it is a monetary help , honestly helping them is kind of sickening .Encountering such incidents in my everyday life, many a times I am left confused , whether I should feel sympathetic and help or most importantly I should be careful to ‘what kind of help’ rendering .
So , here is an instance, recently I was out with my friends to the area of Rabindra Sarobar Lake to sip an evening adda . Buying three “bhaar’er cha”, the adda was all set up in its full swing, until a little shabby boy came running up and started crying , “Didi dosh taka dao na, khide peyechey ! “ (Sister , please give me ten bucks, I am hungry). At first we tried to shoo him off though , but somehow I felt sympathetic (quite natural) and asked him politely “Khaabi kichu ? Chol , saamn’er dokan thekey cake kiney dichi” (Will you eat something ? Come, I’ll buy you cake from the shop nearby) . As expected, food wasn’t the substance he was looking forward to , yes you’re right , it was the ten bucks for which he was apparently hungry and dramatic! As we refused to help , few other children tagged along , each asking for exactly ten rupees , and started clutching our legs . One of my friends jokingly asked, “ Kano , malik boleychey dosh taka’r kom aanley hobey na ?” (Why , your owner has mentioned you cannot get less than ten bucks?) , and to our utter surprise they answered , “Ha .” (Yes). After all, innocent souls as they are , still discovering the many ways of hiding the truth , yet failing to do so, or it could be a failure on the owner’s part , forgetting the ways of grooming them up properly ! This time , I was arrogant enough to reply , “Khabar kiney debo , ekta taka debo na “ (I’ll buy you food, I’ll not give money ) . Again , I got another shock of the evening , while they pointed to a particular shop and said that I have to buy food from that particular shop only ! On refusing to do so , they refused to eat food if bought from a different shop.Why would the children only want to buy food from ‘That’ shop? Is it any kind of deal they have been set into ? Or, it might just be by "that" shopowner.
It shouldn’t be judged through one incident though ,but since the streets are infiltrated with them, it is difficult to differentiate who is really needy and who is deceptive, after all , everyone has that same pleading expression on their face . At times taking into account those crippled , blind ones , or probably one having his leg bandaged while ,in the paper they wave , clearly states they have an arm fracture ! Funny enough? Probably ,uneducated enough to not know which paper he should have carried , before leaving for the job.
Begging has more or less taken a form of art nowadays, I honestly believe. Look at them, how diligently they make a business out of mercy . Oh ,just not ‘torn-clothes’ people beg . Taking advantage of religious beliefs , our minds are often plagued with the fear of religious curse. So often after coming out of any temple , when the “Sadhus” pound upon us for their “Bhiksha” and if we dare to knock back ,what else ? Exactly , we are cursed a thousand times in the name of the deity! Really ? Then why take so much pain to do so much rituals and spend so much money , if God’s appeasement is worth few rupees ?
Well, it’s an on-going,ever-increasing ,controversial issue . .. but how many of the street beggars’ hunger encircles food and how many of them are hungry for taking up the easiest way of making a living ?
-Shreya Basak
SHRI SHIKSHAYATAN COLLEGE
JOURNALISM AND MASS COMMUNICATION
1ST YEAR
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