The Story

So many a times we have stopped at traffic signals and have had beggars come up to us for money. We might also have encountered a few men telling us their sad stories and eventually the need for money. Experiences tell us to avoid these supposed con men, to ignore them and look away. The other day, waiting at a bus stand for a friend, I, with a group of friends, had a similar rendezvous.

Ignoring the guy when he first walked up to us and asked for money, we continued our wait. We didn’t turn a deaf ear though, and listened to his story with little emotion. He had traveled 850 km from his home to come to Jaipur to find a job, heeding his brothers’ advice, who lived in the city. On reaching his brothers’ address, he learnt that his brother had left the place. Stranded, he spent all of his money searching for a job. Now he had only one choice, that to go home. With a train the same night, he just wanted some money for “kharcha paani”, as he put it. The story, though far-fetched, involved us somehow. To add to it all, he pointed out his wife and son, whom he had brought along all the way from his village. We tried to cross-examine the story, trying to find a loop hole, but he seemed to have had a genuine answer to all our questions. We guided him to a police station, but he told us he had already been there and they had given him rotis, and that this was all the help the police had provided. Saying this he showed us a container filled with rotis. We had listened enough, but to believe that a man in his late twenties could be so stupid, as to bring his family along without a job, would be stupidity on our part. We contributed 40 bucks, not for the man and his story, but for the wife and the kid.

I am not sure if we did the right thing or not. Did we encourage art of con or really help out a guy in distress? I am sure of this though, it is our innate nature to be humane, and we do lend out a helping hand whenever someone, no matter who it is, touches our hearts.