BEGGAR TALES

BEGGAR TALES

Beggary has been abolished in Kerala or so I believed until I see some beggars bold enough to challenge the law against beggary, loitering in front of temples, road sides, railway station, and even cinema theatres premises are’nt free of them, although the number of beggars seen compared to earlier years have decreased tremendously.

Three years ago, I saw a congregation of beggars in Ochira open temple premises. There were rows and rows of them. As we toured the open temple premises, a beggar lady foretold my mother in law, while she was looking up at a huge tree, that her prayers for her father would be heard and that he would be saved by God from the grave illness he was suffering, much to mine and my mother in law’s shock. I hadn’t known some beggars can be clairvoyant!. My mother in law distributed lots of one rupee coins to lots of beggars. They seemed to be in some sort of trance. They cast a glance at the act of offering and turned their faces away as if lost and disconnected from the very world we are consumed by.

After visiting the beautiful Suchindram temple in 1998, we (my husband, myself, and my two children) got in the taxi we were travelling in at around 7pm. It was quite dark outside. A beggar came and knocked on the window and my husband gave him one rupee. Suddenly, from nowhere, like a swarm of bees, a swarm of beggars crowded around the car banging the car, a gesture conveying an earnest request for money. The vehicle began to shake. The taxi driver, without running into any of the beggars managed to get his car out of the grave situation and sped away. Did he know stunt driving? I never asked!

In 2006, we visited the famed Padmanabapuram Palace. After the visit as we exited, we were greeted by a little beggar girl child. I guessed her age to be five or six. She had brown unkempt hair. One would pay at the beauty parlour a couple of thousand rupees for such a hair colour. It looked more presentably unkempt than a rock star’s hair which he would have paid quite a sum to get the ‘umkempt’ look for a concert. She had a brand new aluminium coated begging bowl which was empty. She thrust the begging bowl in front of me without a sound. I told her, “Little children should not beg.” ‘You should be going to school’. She didn’t respond to my statement. Instead, she appeared determined in her mission. Her mother wearing unwashed torn saree with dishelved hair stood a few metres away observing with a baby in her arms, besides two tiny kids on her either side clutching at her saree. The older daughter chosen to be the bread winner. I placed a rupee in her begging bowl lest she is scolded or beaten for not trying hard enough.

Last week, my friends and I went to Sree threatre in Thampanoor for a movie. As we stood for the ticket counter to open, the crowd began to grow, some standing, some sitting on the steps. Everyone’s attention shifted to a lean tall old man clothes in utter rags, the stentch that emanated from him clung in the air. He had a cloth bag hanging behind him from his right shoulder. He was going from person to person shockingly with a long razor blade used in barber shops for shaving and pointing the razor blade and demanding money, not begging! I was even more shocked to see smiles on people’s faces and each one readily handing over coins. My pupils widened when I saw, the next ritual. He, upon taking the coin from a person, moved the razor blade in a slow motion across the shoulder or face or body of the person he took money from. Where was the security? Well, the security at first tried to usher him away, but upon seeing the razor blade, slowly went inside the theatre and closed the glass door and the ticket counter was yet to open. People could have gathered and rid the beggar from the premises, but nobody seemed to be affected or maybe they were and they turned a blind eye. Finally the razor blade beggar left, sparing a few of us including my friends and me. The ticket counter opened, we bought the tickets and watched yet another Shafi time pass entertainer called ‘Lollipop’.

It was around 3.30pm, outside LIC building Pattom, where a huge amount of children assemble after school to catch buses to go home. ‘Aunty, aunty’…and I turn back. ‘Aunty, could you give me 5 rs?” asks a young healthy school going boy of around 12, from a nearby school of repute. ‘For what?’ I asked. ‘I don’t have money to go home by bus’. ‘Really?”, ‘Yes, I forgot to take money when I left home this money’. Ignoring his plea, I crossed the road, went up to Spencers, just across. While coming out after shopping, I saw the same boy with a few friends eating snacks at the Ambrosia outlet outside Spencers. I was surprised at the skillful art of beggary practiced by a child of middle class affluent!

In place of the Big Bazar in Kesavadapuram, was a non functioning theatre called Kalpana when I relocated to Trivandrum in 2005. Next to that was Ambrosia restaurant, youngsters and working class would frequent as their evening snacks were and are quite irresistible. A young beggar lady in her late teens or early twenties with baby in arms was trying to catch every passerby’s attention and no one seemed to be responding. As I exited from Ambrosia after picking up a few snacks, she caught my attention. ‘Give me money…I have a baby…I haven’t eaten, my baby is sick.’ I told her ‘Why don’t you find some work to do instead of begging on the streets. You look healthy and capable of working.’ To which she said, ‘Yes, I will work, will you give me work?. Can I work in your house?’ ‘I don’t need a maid right now’ I replied. ‘No one will give me work, that’s why I have to beg’, she said. I parted handing over a 20 rupee note and I told her its getting late for a young girl like her to be standing there. ‘I have been through so much, Iam not afraid anymore’, she said.