IF beggars were choosers, they would choose to be born again. Anyway, given a choice they would certainly plead, “As if we have a choice?” It is in their birth. It is in their nature. It is in their dreams. In fact, it is also in their bowls. They have a surplus of what they ever wanted in their bowls, that which constitutes the ingredients of their life — a beggar’s life — emptiness, hunger, greed and, above all, passion for more of all that. Can’t you see ... it is even on their faces?
Ask me. I know better. I have been through this. I have been with them. Admittedly, I have been once, them. No shame. Everyone has been once them.
The last time I begged my friend for a couple of grands, I also begged him not to tell it to my greedy neighbour who had lent me a thousand rupees month before last. He would come begging for it back. And I would have to beg him not to pester me, because I have more important business to attend to than think of debt repayment now.
And what does he ever do with so much money, anyway? His children are all grown-up and married off. His wife neatly packed off and stashed away into eternity. His bachelorship regained, with no one to look after. Isn’t it funny he has so much money that if I hadn’t borrowed a grand from him, he would have nothing to beg for, anymore?
“Money, money, money ... It’s so funny, in a rich man’s world ...” ironically the ABBA number rings in my ears as my mind races with myriad creative options on how to convince my boss that I needed some advance badly to settle my credit card bills. Or else, I will have to cut them into two halves and post them back to the bank by next month. That means cutting my budget into half, too. Or beg, borrow or steal to last this month. Honestly, I would love to steal than beg my boss for this petty amount, I think. But then, as if I have a choice.
“No one likes to beg, sire,” the sturdy gypsy with a weather-beaten face enlightens me as I shoo him away, cursing him for begging so shamelessly. “It’s poverty that compels us. It is unemployment that forces us into doing all this,” he keeps on blabbering while unabashedly holding out his hand to my face.
“I have just the job for you,” I tell him sympathetically, ducking my head to avoid his fingers poking into my eye as I slide the glass of my worn-out car up and bang its door shut in the parking lot.
“I am not begging for a job, sire. I have enough on my plate already. I am not exactly praying for sympathy either. What I am looking for is enough money to buy myself a square meal that can give me enough energy to feed myself back to work. And also save some so I can take home.” Of course, he has a family home, he tells me. And since they haven’t eaten for the last three days, they will certainly have to be fed first.
“Here, clean my car everyday. I can try and get your cars of other residents in these apartments to wash on a regular basis, so you earn enough money to feed your family and yourself. I think one must not beg, but earn one’s livelihood with dignity ...”
“Dignity? Huh! Sire, I am not dying for a sermon. If you can give me some money, well and good. Or else ... God is great,” he mutters as he moves on. And then he says something I can never forget: “You can keep the dignity to yourself. I am not a beggar. No one likes to beg, sire ...” But he doesn’t make me angry. He only makes me ashamed of myself. Isn’t this what we are all saying? It is in our nature, denying what we have been doing since birth?
A nation standing with a begging bowl in front of the world. A leader standing with a begging bowl in front of the nation. A people standing with a begging bowl in front of their leader that he may get them enough so they can pay him back. And so on ... the show must go on.
Driving through the busy Sharea Faisal, snaking through a swarm of aesthetically-repealing shiny monochromatic metal bodies clanging and honking and screeching at Iron Maiden decibels, I am mobbed again. “Sire, you give one paisa, He will give you one million in return.”
I don’t want to go theoretical — drowning my sympathies in the ‘spirit’ of it. “I know,” I mutter as I drop a rupee-coin in his grimy little hand, “... only He knows when I will get it.”
