The Beggar Child...

I set out on an evening outing with my family today. We went to the sea beach and were having ' Falooda', when a few beggar children surrounded us and began to touch us quite irritably, urging for some alms.

We have heard on ' Savdhan India' and ' Crime Patrol ' like serials, the police authorities warning us against beggar gangs, and that we would be helping the gangsters to extend their trade if we give the beggars any money.

So I firmly denied giving any money and suggested to them to eat whatever they like, from the nearby vendors and I would pay for them, to the vendors.

The eldest girl among them denied outright to eat by telling that she wasn't feeling hungry and began to avoid us. But one of the younger beggar kids couldn't resist the temptation of tasty food and accepted my offer.

The other small beggar kid began to scrutinize around him and changed his mind, after getting a signal from his supervisor, it seemed. He utilized his childish wit and told me that he didn't like Falooda, but if I gave him some money, he would buy an ice-cream from the nearby Amul outlet. The Falooda seller burst into laughter, mocking the boy," Now, he also wants branded items!!

A superior of the beggar gang was indeed watching them from a safe distance. When he felt that the children were meshing up the situation and there was not much chance of getting money from us, he came and intervened, shouting at them to stop bothering us and to go to others and they ran away feeling petrified.

I began to describe to my daughter, how there exist, well-organised beggar gangs who kidnap children, make them invalid intentionally, give them dirty clothes to wear, the meagre amount of food to eat and barely any medicine when they need, so that they look emaciated and sickly, supply the beggar women heavily sedated babies to carry so that they would generate more compassion from the people and instruct them to keep touching and irritating people so that they would give some money to get rid of them. The children are mercilessly beaten if they don't generate their target amount of alms by the end of the day.

After that incident, we went to the market and stopped to eat some delicious Jalebis on the way and instructed my driver to pack some to take home. Then two small boys arrived, hardly above the age of 10 and requested to me very politely," Didi, please give us some Jalebi..."

I gave two Jalebis for the two of them. They ran away with lightning speed with a smile of ecstasy on their faces, to share the Jalebis with two small girls,( maybe their sisters) who were trying to recover something eatable from the nearby dustbin.

The Jalebi vendor shouted at them to go away and told me disgustedly," These children live in the nearby slum, who come and irritate my customers for food."

I gave two more Jalebis for the two little girls on my way back.

My daughter said," Your behaviour is quite confusing, Mama. You denied giving any alms to the beggars at the sea beach and now you are giving extra Jalebis to these beggars!!"

I said," Obeying rules to discourage beggar trade was quite alright before the Corona pandemic. But now the disease, hunger, joblessness has converted most of the poor people into beggars. Hunger is powerful enough to demolish any self-respect they have. We can only lend a helping hand, as much as possible for us and pray to God, to give all of us the mental strength to survive this crisis.

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