You'll fuss and fret through life
While they do all the living
Ruskin Bond – Slum Children at Play

'How fortunate we are' I sighed looking at the beggar children scuttle everywhere from person to person, car to car at the traffic signal with their hands clutched on a small shallow bowl. There were hardly some pennies, cluttering loudly, to feed them to look after them. They showed their tummies which is almost concave in appearance and their torn clothes which could not tear any more. Shabby, dirty and stinking but nothing could dissuade their spirit, running around, burdened with only now and today. The lights turned green and all the vehicles geared up to zip away. The nameless beggar children scurried as fast as they could to the sides of the road, few with smiles and few with a blank face but none with apparent worries.

Few generously gave those beggar children some money and felt content, few gave a penny and boasted; few gave nothing and got annoyed with their regular presence at every traffic signal. No one could be blamed here. A man who works hard for a living would without doubt get furious looking at the beggars, who stretch their hand out  and expect to be fed everyday on someone else's hard earned money. Myriad impoverished parents shove their numerous children into the begging lifestyle and make them earn for them. They exploit their innocence and the sympathy of the crowd. Such like is the everyday scene at the traffic signal, something inerasable from daily life.

There were days my wallet used to be half empty and I was giving away money generously to these beggars because there was nothing to save, nothing could be saved out of it. Then came the season of spring in my life, my wallet grew thicker, I started saving and I had developed many basic materialistic dreams. I thought twice before I could throw away a penny to any lazy beggar. I knew that every drop had a potential to make a sea and I could not go against this comprehension.

There is sufficient reason for not giving away to the beggars; they are lazy and they are alcoholic and waste our money and so on. But I always gave a penny to a beggar who stumbled across my path, especially if I were eating. Sometimes I shared my food with them. Few were happy to grab it and few were rude to deny it. Can a beggar afford to deny anything? If so, even I have a stone heart to turn my face away.

One day I was travelling in a bus, through the hills, the trees, and the wind in my face, simply mesmerizing. Everything faded away as the bus chugged into a big bus station. The mid day sun shone bright. Suddenly everywhere there were people rushing from every direction and noise of every kind. The conductor announced the lunch break and without any choice I opened my lunch box and started munching the sandwich which I had packed from home. I was looking around the chaos and the beauty of it. Many pedestrian hawkers clambered into the bus with paraphernalia of food and snacks and colorful tit bits, all florally arranged in open aluminum cases slung before their chests.

Many of the other passengers bought different bits and pieces and started eating. Soon followed a beggar girl right behind the hawkers wearing almost a torn dress and started bleating at every seat. She was mute and she had a government document in some language which I could not read and half of the passenger's could not read. I resolved not to give anything to her, because everything about her appeared fake. In spite of my decision I was uncomfortable simply because I was eating. The girl snaked her way from seat to seat many of them turned away their faces and shooed her away. The cucumber hawker was the last one still selling his cool cucumbers on a hot sweating bus. For an instant I looked at him and thought I would buy a cucumber slice for that beggar girl.

Whether I took a long time to decide or it is my lack of spontaneity, I will never know, the girl got off the bus, that instant with empty hands just as the cucumber man too at last got off from the bus with the empty plate.

The bus pulled out of the station leaving the hawkers, the hot sun, the cucumber man and the little girl behind, growing further away every moment. For a long while during the rest of the journey, I cursed myself, for not being spontaneous in buying that slice, for the little girl. I will never know if the girl had had her lunch or she was roaming around on an empty stomach. In that scorching heat a slice of that cucumber would have been heaven for anyone.

The girl moved on with her life, met her other beggar friends, smiled heartily and immediately climbed into another bus resuming her routine. The incident remained in my mind fresh for a few days but the girl has not got off from my mind as yet. She still snakes her way between those seats.

'Slum Children at Play'
You'll fuss and fret through life
While they do all the living