How often do we observe kids, under 10 yrs old, boys and girls alike besides their mother or apparantly other close relatives approaching the passerbys, usually vehicle driven, near traffic signal points. And yes, good number of them are circumstantially shabbily dressed. And what would they normally do or customarily attempt is knock at the glass window and seek monetary relief citing one reason or other, which is common to and which mars every surviving creature on this planet.Nothing new in this spectacle. Right? Metropolitan, for its perceived treasure of better employment opportunity and other amenities, would witness such sights of humanitarian crisis on almost daily basis. Though, localities dwelt by socialites or political heavy weights with police personnel deployed at signal or junctions would definitely miss out on such sights for obvious reasons of security.
Its poignant to watch such fledgling children struggling to add to their family earnings just to survive, completely oblivious to the hazards to their lives associated with their daily callings on heavily trafficked roads. They are for sure at a great loss. The period of growing up under the care of elders and playing with their peers do not seem to be their destiny.
At a time when no systemic intervention has ever favoured such community, a new dimension in mendicancy has evolved right under my constant gaze at one such traffic signal point. At the first glance I got so affected at the plight of the person who approached me that unconsciously or out of extreme pity I began to search in my pocket for some sort of paper currency in a bid to bring succour to the person.
Why?.
The person who just approached was no ordinary man. He was tall, bald, well built, comparatively well dressed, had slung a tarveller bag on one shoulder and with his loving yet beseeching pitiable gesture his advancing age drew me closer for help. At one time I developed a sense of guilt that I did not have money in my possession to offer him and to console my mind otherwise, I also concocted, out of my past bitter experience of helping out others, a story that the person was just a decoy. However, sometimes later and quite recently, I came across the same elderly gentleman, attired in the manner just described above, approaching one vehicle ahead me and then to me. Many ideas came to my mind.
Should I pity on him ?
Should I make mockery of such an act by sharing his ordeal with colleagues or should I look deeper into the plausible causes which brought him to such a deplorable condition and compelled him at his advancing age to meander across the vehicular lane for assistance.?
Whatever happened with him in his life shall remain a mystery to me but his periodic appearance at the same signal with the stated objective indeed left an indelible mark on my pysche and some unanswered queries...!
Dunno, how to react at it..?
