‘I am not a beggar’

Help is not what everyone needs

The statement in the headline is not meant to highlight the menace of beggary or how it impacts our societal structures; instead, the statement is the new pitch by young boys and, to a lesser extent, some girls, who will come up to you on the streets of Karachi and tell you their tale of misery and ask for not alms but ‘help’, and that too in English.

I had come across some of these guys and one girl, whose stories would shake you up and you will be forced by your conscience to help them. But help is not what they need.

One of the guys, who had a stud in his ear, gelled hair, stylish attire, proper shoes and a fake American accent, tried to sell me a pocket-perfume. Owing to my overly-sensitive skin, which cannot even bear a deodorant other than some specific brands, I refused. He insisted and I vehemently refused again but suddenly that ordinary ‘perfume wala larka’ transformed into ‘the cool perfume guy’.

“I am not a beggar, brother” is what he started his well-versed pitch with. “I am trying to earn some money for my family. My father is dead and I have two sisters to take care of plus I have to support myself for my studies.” Each and every word was said with sheer eloquence in a language still alien to most of our people. My will was overruled in a matter of seconds and I gave him the amount he asked for and took the pocket perfume from him.

Seems legit, right? You pay, take the commodity and walk forward. But then his plea for assistance changed into a cry for help. “Brother, can you buy me some food as well? I haven’t eaten since morning.” This sentence proved to be the spoiler, which killed his act, not to mention the fact that this too, was said in English. His gutka-tainted teeth were the very first thing I noticed after this. My response was, “If you can afford gutka, then you can surely afford food.”

This is the first-of-many encounters I have had with such people. And whenever I offered them a job or proper family support, all that their pitch allowed them to say was “sorry brother, you don’t want to buy, then okay”. This new breed of ‘hard-working people’ and not beggars (sarcasm intended) will catch you too some day and present you with the same account of their affairs, the only change being in the number of unmarried sisters they have or the father seriously ill or bed-struck.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 4^th, 2015.