Beggars & Touts

It’s hard to do but the best thing to do is to ignore touts and beggars. Treat them “like you don’t give a damn”. It’s completely alien to a western upbringing, but it’s the way things work. Just acknowledgement is a form of acceptance. Personally, I’m getting better at it BUT I counter it by making sure I give away a fixed sum every day. I give to someone I think really needs it. There’s little in the way of welfare and there are plenty of people invalided or otherwise that simply cannot work. This way you get to help without wasting your time or the time of the person you’re not going to give to.

Having said all that, begging is an acknowledged career in India. Do what you feel like. Many widowed women will never find another husband and will be without a skill or trade. I’ve never found anyone who can adequately explain the transvestites that beg at traffic lights. The elderly who loose their family effectively loose their pensions. The best you can do is follow your heart and your head.

It’s interesting to note that many will beg in Bombay for a month or two, living on the street, and then return to their villages with their relatively high earnings. Much begging is gang related. Teams of women take it in turns carrying babies at traffic lights pretending to be starving, pretending to be ill. It’s a scam, but it’s a scam on the women too. There is invariably a gang master, a man who has taken the women on, looks after them to a degree but beats them if they don’t bring in enough money. Faced with little alternative, they and their children are stuck.