Beggars Can
be Choosers
Beggars on
the street of any city in India have become an intolerable menace. But their
growth in number, kind and ways show, how it has become almost like a
full-fledged industry. We all know about organized begging, we know how they
are been trapped, tortured, amputated and wasted, but still we encourage them
by showing sudden bursts of sympathy and contribute directly in ruining their
lives, who could have otherwise led a far better life instead. Because of our
unthoughtful behaviour, people are choosing such a suicidal livelihood and the
most ironical part of it is that, we are’ paying’ for it to happen. Have we ever realized that few people, who don’t
have an iota of sympathy in their mind, are making money only by exploiting
public sympathy? Why should anyone waste their money for encouraging such
heinous criminal racket? If we don’t
have time, money or scope to donate for a good cause, let us keep our money to
ourselves and add up to our bank balance, than draining it to criminal hands.
We need to ponder on the fact that, when we have the mind of helping a poor
hand, when we feel for them at least once in a while, we can make amends; this
small kindness can really change lives.
We can
follow few simple steps to reduce the hyper activities of the begging rackets.
1. Don’t give the beggars cash; give food, clothes or toys instead.
If we are moved by the beggar’s cry and plead, when we are in our
vehicle waiting for a signal, we can give them a piece of food item, a clothing
material or a toy. If we stop the circulation of money or resale items to the hands
of beggars, it will directly benefit the beggar on site and not the wealthy, filthy criminal racket
owner behind the screen.
2. Whenever you see a child beggar, take a snap from your mobile.
All of us carry a mobile whenever we are
outdoors. Whenever we come across a child beggar, even carried or accompanied
by an elder, we can take a snap of them and post them in any of the social
media sites, if not in a newspaper. Still better will be, if we can report it
to the police station over ruling the fact that they won’t work. Sometimes they
do, if they find, things are getting too public.
3. Talk to them and take out information:
Whenever we come across a beggar pestering us to give him money, ask few
questions like where is he from, whether he is in touch with his parents. Ask
him and take a note whether he can tell his address or any contact person or
their number.
4. Inform the police:
If you want to save a life and have the satisfaction of it, take the
trouble and initiative of informing the police, whatever information you could
collect from those ill-fated children. We all know that in most cases Police
disappoints us and to be more openly true, they put us into trouble. But then
if we keep quiet and only watch things rushing towards the negative direction,
one day we may have to pay an unbearable price for it.
A secured
nation doesn’t happen one fine morning. it has to be built up day by day with
all the hands put together. Corruption, crime and man-made-disasters can be
reversed, if we can take the courage of resisting them instead of being more
courageous to suffer their consequences. We need to remind ourselves, that
those who are suffering today have also thought that “nothing will happen to
them.”
