Thinker tailor doctor lawyer, teacher banker Indian beggar!

Time of India

30-04-2025

Radhika has been writing since her college days and has contributed short witty articles to magazines and regional English newspapers. She is a humour blogger and has just published her first e-book of humorous short stories. She is a Piscean which puts her in league with Daniel Craig, and others. Like most Pisceans she is amiable, imaginative and a dreamer - that probably explains the Daniel Craig bit. She could go on about herself forever but she prefers her writing to do the talking. LESS ... MORE
The other day, the husband and I dressed in our Sunday best, booked an Ola and sallied forth for a luncheon date with our sambandhis in Bangalore. The cab halted at a traffic signal and I idly watched as a panhandler weaved his way dexterously amidst the traffic holding his begging bowl in front of him. The pan seemed to be empty and a faint stirring of sympathy began surging up within me. 'Poor fellow,' I remarked to the husband, 'must be having a rough day at work.' But before the feeling could take over my entire being and make me open my purse strings, the man came by our window and then I saw it. A mid-sized chart, with a QR code on it, dangling from his neck. Scan to pay, it informed prospective alms-givers! Aha!
The husband and I, we nodded our heads appreciatively. Way to go!
If a country's progress is determined by how its beggars beg, then our country is right on top. Our beggars have gone digital.
And professional too, if you go by the newspaper article of a couple of months back on India's richest beggar – Bharat Jain, with a net worth of approximately 7.5 crores gained primarily through begging. With his income of over 40 years of begging away, the man now owns 2 flats, a stationary shop and 2 other shops, all in Mumbai, that real estate gold mine, mind you! This out of the box entrepreneur is quoted as saying that he still continues to beg despite his wealth, because, well … he enjoys begging. Finally, we meet someone who actually loves his job! More than can be said about the majority of people, what say!
Makes me think that beggars can be choosers after all!
And to validate this point, there was this one time, when a supposed beggar clanged the gate of my parents' home in Ambalpady, Udupi and begged for alms. Amma, normally a generous woman but a no-nonsense one, looked the young man over critically and told him severely to stop begging and 'go do some work … you are young, able-bodied and with all your limbs intact,' I remember her saying. The beggar in his turn, looked at amma and said in tones loud enough to carry over half the colony, 'Madam, if you want to give alms, give, don't give lecture!' While amma gaped at him, for the first time without a suitable comeback, the young man sauntered off, to try his luck elsewhere, presumably.
And while we're on the topic, I'm still searching for that man who coined that phrase in the first place – beggars can't be choosers indeed! If I meet him, I have a thing or two to say to him. Where was he when I was accosted unceremoniously at the Udupi bus stand by a robust woman with a child dangling precariously at her hip? She came at me with her arm out-stretched and I gave her a generous sum. Generous by my standards, obviously, because the next thing I know, the female follows me around town tugging at my sleeve and whining in an embarrassingly shrill tone. Till date, I am unable to understand if she was asking for more money, food, clothes, milk powder … she could have been begging me to adopt that bawling baby of hers for all I know! I didn't wait to find out but jumped agilely into a passing auto which bore me off to safety.
That was one beggar who very clearly wasn't too excited at what she got. Begging your pardon, but I wonder if that QR code thingy would have helped in such a situation! Anonymity, undisclosed sum at source and all that!
It certainly begs the question, doesn't it!
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