Decieved By Compassion

Decieved By Compassion???



I was hurrying up the stairs of the railway station carrying one of my bag, the other bag being carried by my mom. There was more 30min for the train to arrive and we would be on the platform in hardly 5min,but its my mama’s nature to hurry things and tense people around her, to reach the place well before time and of course as we all know the train would arrive another 20 minutes late.

There weren’t many people on the platform except for few students. I was awaiting one of my college mates sitting on a bench beside mom.
As usual, I slipped back into my world of thoughts, retrospecting the holidays and pondering over the words of the people I interact with in my daily routine. Unlike many people while thinking I wont sit still and look straight as if hypnotized. May be because its is as natural for me as breathing.

I was glancing at the whole length of the opposite platform an casually looked to my left and saw a beggar sliding on a slab being lame. He approached me for alms and I dropped a penny in his bowl saying to myself “that poor man cannot do any work to support himself . I said this to myself ,so that I wont feel guilty about encouraging beggary .

When I was in ninth standard, my favorite English teacher was discussing about beggary in India in an an interactive session from our main course text book
At the end of the discussion she advised us (Her looks stern and serious) not to drop a penny to those kids ,young people and any others who are physically fit n support themselves.
“You are encouraging beggary by dropping pennies to them. It does no good to nation. As a responsible and/or good citizen ,you must discourage beggary. Teach them to live their lives respectfully by working for themselves and their children”

Remembering this , I always resisted my self not to be compassionate to such beggars and fall to their tricks. But giving the reason to my self that that man could hardly support himself being lame, I felt reasonable to drop a penny .

Then slipping back to my thoughts, that when my friend would arrive, I looked straight upon to the opposite platform and I saw that beggar AGHAST !!!!
He was carrying the sliding slab in his hands and was walking as if he is the First
HOMO SAPIEN to walk in right posture !!

It caused consternation and I felt deeply deceived . Thence I learnt how trickful they are . it is not uncommon ,especially in railway stations and bus stops , some two to three children would surround us and their mother with another infant carrying in her arms would go after other passengers to beg. And ofcourse , their father would perform some other tricks to collect the pennies . thus the whole family gets into begging business and their policy is like ,”More children ,more people in the family to beg and more pennies”

Oohf !! This is one incident .

Wanna know another incident ? Well, read on ………..

Me and my friends were having chat at a chat bhandar opposite to our college , a small boy came to us and begged for money. We offered the boy food instead for money, but the boy denied saying his mother asked him to beg only for money and he wanted pennies and not food.
Obviously, we would be encouraging him to beg if we dropped penny.
The onus is on us being the citizens to discourage them, to teach them to improve their lives and better the future of their child. Make them aware of the child labour laws and if possible show them some work or way to work, so that they could earn and send their children to school.

Now, I wonder how many of us would teach beggars and the poor.
But a responsible citizen would alwys take the chance of teaching them, there by trying to better the lives of the under developed ones and make efforts and hope seeing India as a developed nation.