Inflation Vs Beggar

This is a first hand account of my interaction with a beggar which turned out to be so interesting to me, that I thought of sharing it with all.

To begin with I was moving in a hurry to reach office because of some pending works that I had kept for the next day. The bus conductor handed a bunch of Re 1 & Rs 2 coins, as my stop has arrived. It may be appearing, why would he give me money for traveling in his bus? No. there is a peculiar habit of conductors at Bangalore, whatever note (currency) you give them they give you the ticket minus the amount written on back of it. At your stop if you asked for the balance amount they would pay or it’s their silage!

Let me come back to the point, I was rushing towards my office and suddenly an appealingly pathetic figure, downed by sickness and hunger, appeared before me. Usually I do not have a habit to encouraging begging / beggars (It appears to me that begging to beggars is the most lucid, tax-free option to earn un-audited money.. J ), but some how I did not liked to ignore him and since I was still holding handful of change in my hand. So I dropped a coin of Rs. 2 in the box he was carrying. Uninterestingly he took that coin in hand and told, the prices are sky rocketing, I should give him at least Rs. 5 as alms. I was just shook by the remark he made, wondering how the alms are going to be costlier if this inflation and price rise persisted.

Interestingly I handed him over a Rs. 1 Coin more and moved on. But I was still pondering on what had been already quibbling in my mind. So I decided to go ahead with writing this incident.

Before going ahead, I had narrated to one of my friends at office, incidentally he also had a beggar experience, where a beggar demanded him Rs.10 as alms. He gave him the same and moved on later some one told him that beggar / bugger already had a 3 storey building and his daily earnings amounted to Rs. 2000 or more per day.